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THE LIFE AND REMARKABLEADVENTURES OFISRAEL R. POTTER
“Israel Potter is not merely another good man adrift in a world devoid of goodness: he is, above all, an American, whose ideals and aims are derived from that same self-reliant democratic ethos which Whitman and Emerson were later to celebrate. Hired laborer, farmer, chain bearer, hunter, trapper, Indian trader, merchant sailor, whaler, soldier, courier, spy, carpenter, and beggar, through it all, Israel remains the American, the man who, even in the hardships of exile, insists that all will be well once he can again walk ‘on American ground.’
“This small book did not help Israel Potter achieve his objective: his quest for a pension proved unsuccessful, and he died soon after, on ‘the same day,’ Melville tells us, ‘that the oldest oak in his native hills was blown down.’ He took with him whatever was left of his dreams and pride, an end which, to some extent, all victims share. ‘Kings as Clowns,’ Melville wrote bitterly, ‘are codgers—who ain’t a nobody?’ It is a fitting epitaph for all the Israel Potters.”
from the Introduction by Leonard Kriegel,The City College of New York
The American Experience Seriesis devoted to publishing new editions of historic books which mirrored and shaped the growth of our Nation from earliest times to the present.
Consulting Editor: Henry Bamford Parkes
CORINTH BOOKSdistributed byTHE CITADEL PRESS
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