"The Reign of Law: A Tale of The Kentucky Hemp Fields" by James Lane Allen, illustrated by Harry Fenn and J.C. Earl, published by Macmillan, New York, First Edition, 5th printing, September 1900 [1st printing was issued in June 1900].

Hard boards, original pictorial red cloth stamped in brown, gold and silver, [a little surface and shelf wear]; 5.1/4" x 7.5/8"; frontispiece, 385 pages + 6 pages of publisher's ads, printed on high quality laid paper + 8 monochrome plates on glossy paper [all listed plates are present]; very good condition.

Provenance:

From the library of J. Griff Edwards, Portsmouth, Virginia; the stamp is on the front endpaper, verso of the frontispiece and dedication page.

John Griff Edwards (1870-1912) belonged to the old established settler family in Virginia. His father and uncles served in the Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War. The grandfather, LeRoy Griffin Edwards (1804-1866), was the president of the Confederate Convention of 1864. John's wife, Mrs. J. Griff Edwards founded and led the first of the United Confederate Choirs of America (1907). After that she was elected the 'Commander in Chief of the United Confederate Choirs'. In 1911 she published a volume titled "Echoes From Dixie A Collection of Songs Used in the South."

"This book is NOT about turn of the century drug culture. The protagonist of this story is a young man attending a religious college, questioning the values and morals that he was raised with, and learning about love and life in the process. James Lane Allen, who wrote other novels with Kentucky settings, chose to use the cycle of hemp crops to parallel human growth - neither the first nor last author to use such an analogy. At the time, hemp was an important source of fiber and the plant was grown commercially for that use, and Kentucky was the largest producing state. Hemp was an agricultural product like cotton or corn.

The book aroused some readers' ire due to its controversial topic - the questioning of religious doctrine by a young college student. The story now is somewhat dated; that is in fact part of its charm. We gain a glimpse of the beliefs and mores of Americans at the beginning of the twentieth century, and the changes that would soon contribute to the first World War. The first chapter does discuss the history of hemp agriculture in the United States and Kentucky, but that is not the thrust of the book in any way." [a private review]

"The Reign of Law" is about two revolutions, even though the plot is situated in the Kentucky hemp fields. The first revolution was the social upheaval in the South that followed the Civil War. The second was the moral and intellectual revolution that followed the great scientific discoveries of the mid-19th Century. The chief characters of the story are a young man and a young woman. As was so often the case during the reconstruction of the South, the heroine passed from the high social sphere of her birth, to the humblest and most obscure hard manual labor. The hero rose from the lowest social condition, to the highest intellectual plane, finding his development through religious and scientific thought. When they finally meet, their influences on each other provide the grist for a most engaging plot; but it doesn't stop with "boy meets girl." The involved social and political conditions, and the vast differences between the two main characters, have allowed James Allen a wide playing field for the subtle analysis of character. Fortunately, in this exquisitely delicate art-he is a master. Overlaying all this, the hero passes through a profound religious crisis, which is the "law" referred to in the title. James Lane Allen writes in a style that accurately portrays the depth and color of 19th Century Kentuckians and their surroundings. Perhaps for this reason, in 1992 he was described as "Kentucky's first important novelist." [a review]

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