WAR OF WORDS: A True Tale of Newsprint and Murder

New York: Union Square Press, 2009. First Edition, First Printing. . Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine. A True Crime account of the 1880 shooting death of Charles de Young, the founder of the San Francisco Chronicle, the leading newspaper in the western U.S. from the 1870s until well into the 1990s. In 1879, de Young and the Chronicle began a bitter feud with Isaac Kalloch, a prominent city preacher running for mayor, with a headline which called Kalloch an "unclean leper." The preacher retaliated from his pulpit labeling de Young and his brother "bastards of progeny of a whore born in the slums and nursed in the lap of prositution." De Young, enraged by the insult to his family, escalated the feud by shooting Kalloch in the chest and leg. Kalloch survived the attack, and in 1880, Kalloch's son, Milton, shot de Young in the neck, killing him instantly. Read's account of this particular bit of California history captures the violent and riotous time of late 19th century San Francisco when words often led to gunplay even among the city's leading citizens. The book's red covers show an artist's rendering of the shooting in black, with the title and author's name in white. Covers and text are clean and unmarked, tight and square, not remaindered. The dustjacket, a "bellyband" covering the lower three-quarters of the book while allowing part of the illustrated covers to be seen, shows only a light "shadow" left by a price sticker near the lower edge of the dj's back panel, o/w the dj is free of flaws, no tears, no creasing or chipping, not price-clipped. A collectable copy.