MINIONS OF THE MOON: A Little Book of Song and Story
Cincinnati: Stewart & Kidd Company, 1913. 1st edition. Hardcover. 1st edition, 1913. Fair. 8vo., 131 pp., beautiful black & white prints & illustrations. Bound in publishers tan paper covered boards. Paste down illustration on front cover. Boards chipping, front board detached, cloth spine present but in poor condition. End papers foxed and soiled, pages get better in the middle of book. A SCARCE title in Fair condition. Fair. Item #25427
Madison Julius Cawein was born in Louisville, Kentucky on March 23, 1865, the fifth child of William and Christiana (Stelsly) Cawein.
After graduating from high school, Cawein worked in a pool hall in Louisville as a cashier in Waddill's New-market, which also served as a gambling house. He worked there for six years, saving his pay so he could return home to write.
His output was thirty-six books and 1,500 poems. His writing presented Kentucky scenes in a language echoing Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats. He soon earned the nickname the "Keats of Kentucky". He was popular enough that, by 1900, he told the Louisville Courier-Journal that his income from publishing poetry in magazines amounted to about $100 a month.
In 1912 Cawein was forced to sell his Old Louisville home, St James Court (a 2 1⁄2-story brick house built in 1901, which he had purchased in 1907), as well as some of his library, after losing money in the 1912 stock market crash. In 1914 the Authors Club of New York City placed him on their relief list. He died on December 8 later that year and was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery.
Price: $50.00