REID (Captain Mayne).
The Headless Horseman: A strange tale of Texas.
Originally published in monthly parts the previous year, a sensational story of the American frontier, set in the wake of the Mexican-American War. The Irish author, Thomas Mayne Reid (1818-1848) fought in the border conflict in 1846, and worked as a correspondent for The New York Herald. His adventure tales claim to have roots in local folklore and legend, and are often subversively critical of colonial practices, especially those surrounding Indigenous people and the institution of slavery. A favourite of Anton Chekhov and Vladimir Nabokov, the latter even translated the present work into French alexandrines as an 11-year-old child.
Sabin, 69049.
