| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Confessions of Edward Isham: A Poor White Life of the Old South. Ed. by Charles C. Bolton and Scott P. Culclasure. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998. xxii, 192 pp. Cloth, $40.00, isbn 0-8203-2021-8. Paper, $18.00, isbn 0-8203-2073-0.)

The Confessions of Edward Isham is a unique collection of essays, offering chapters by one murderer and six historians. Edward Isham leads off, reporting that between his birth in 1826 or 1827 and his impending 1860 hanging, he tried to kill (by my count) eight men before he finally succeeded—twice. North Carolina authorities hanged him for the second killing. This count does not include the entire Isham oeuvre, it should be noted, merely his most serious efforts. Joseph P. Reidy begins his essay in The Confessions of Edward Isham by observing that Edward Isham was not a likable man. This may be the understatement of the book. . . .

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