I got a book called War Songs And Poems from the “free” table in the library the other day. It was published in either 1886 or 1904–it has both dates. It’s very very old.
Anyway, this is written in it.
Can any Chiffers tell what it says? I can’t.
The handwriting is quite normal looking. Unfortunately it is very blurred. Is it this blurred in the book you have? I can make out a number of words but not all:
My Dear Sir,
Your beautiful poems (?)
to the city of Montgomery and its
memories of the struggles […][…]
to defend the rights our Fathers left us,
and to maintain constitutional libery
have been read with grateful admira
tion (?).
Respectfully and truly
yours
Jefferson David
Just a guess.
Yes actually. It’s quite blurry in the book (though some of it is from the fact that thr writing is tiny and my camera sucks), because the book is very old and has obviously been wet at least once in its lifetime so maybe that’s why. Thanks!!
Edit–also I had to digitally brighten the picture. The pages are actually dark brown and very brittle.
Good work there Cynth 
Cran,
What kind of Scanner you got in that library.
You could do a bit better on the photography.
Digital cameras have a delete button, if the shot is a bit blurry..use it
Slan,
D. 
The book has bee wet. 
The fact that it’s blurry isn’t all my fault lol.
“then initiated” ? (Or “there initiated” ?)
Ok, dubhlinn, here. I tried again. I grabbed a sticker from my collection and laid it on the writing to show that the sticker isn’t blurry–part of the blurriness is from the text itself:
I think “there initiated” seems to fit really well.
I am beginning to think the word “poems” that I put on the first line does not really look like the writing.
Cran,
If you can focus on the sticker..then you can focus on the text.
The original text is worth the thread.
Slan,
D.
I’m thankful for you all for satiating my curiosity. I couldn’t’ve read it at all without you. I don’t know why, because, like Cynth said, it’s not a particularly difficult style of writin, but I still couldn’t tell what it said. 
I don’t think “poems” looks right, either. I’m pretty sure it says “pisser”, but I could be mistaken.
djm
still… signed by Jefferson Davis… that’s gotta be worth something!
I thought the same thing, but I can’t come up with a better fit.
Also, I think the signature is “Jefferson Davis” rather than “David”. (Look at all the other words ending in “d”.)
(Edited to note that Walden already caught that.)
How about “present”? The “t” is very faint, but I think it fits the sentence quite well.
Here is the actual book. You can see that it’s very old and very dirty and has been very wet in the past.
The library where I’m working in the fall has a table out front where the community can bring in books they don’t want and people take them for free. I’m a total book whοre so I quickly grab up all the old books and any of the books that interest me otherwise…I’ve read a little bit of the book. It was definately brought in by somebody from this area (central KY) and probably has never left this area…
I suspect it’s a highly collectible book.
Yep, “present” does seem a lot better, I’d go with that.
Jefferson Davis does make a lot more sense!
Here’s my problem though. If, as Cranberry said, the book has the dates 1886 and 1904 as publication dates, then wouldn’t this have to be the 1904 edition? Jefferson Davis died before that–1889. Could this be someone named after Jefferson Davis? I don’t know. Are you sure this is actual ink handwriting and not a facsimile, Cranberry? Could it be a printed copy of Davis’ original inscription? I guess someone would have to examine it in person.
No, I’m not sure. How would you tell the difference?
No, it’s in cursive. I can tell that much.
Update: I figured out that it’s not handwritten, by some text on the same page which says “TO. HON. JEFFERSON DAVIS. BY M. B. WHARTON In answer to the following letter.” The pages are so browned and old it’s really hard to tell what’s what. Hrmmph.
So I guess it’s not valuable after all. No matter. That’s not why I picked it up. I was just intrigued by the title.
Okay. I was just going to say when I said “printed” I mean printed by a machine—someone made a copy of the letter (like a lithograph or something—getting out of my depth here) and a machine printed it. Not “printed” vs. “cursive”. But you figured it out. So that is very interesting really—that’s what makes old books so fun to look at, they keep giving up secrets. Even ones that aren’t valuable in terms of money have a history and stories to tell just in their bindings and paper and markings.
In fact, the cover on this book is quite odd. It is not characteristic of the book covers from 1890-1900. If you look at the different type faces used on the front cover you will see a certain naivete in their use. The style that “War Songs” and “Poems” are in is an odd contrast to the type face used for “Southern Confederacy” and “By an Ex-Confederate”. Possibly the binder didn’t have smaller letters in the larger font, or he may have been isolated and not working in the conventional aesthetic for that time, which would appear much more modern to us. Also, the border and stars are not linked to the overall design—they don’t really relate to the motif in the center, the lines are much heavier. The motif in the center seems to have been well drawn (then to be turned into a metal stamp), but it looks like there was some trouble with the color stamping. All of this is not too say that this is not a neat book. Just the opposite in fact. It is neat. Probably it was published by a very small publisher or one that maybe just published things about the Confederacy, I don’t know obviously. But it definitely wasn’t one of the big publishers of the time. So even if it isn’t valuable in terms of money, it does tell a story.
The initials A and C above the flags—I guess they are A and C. Do you know what those would stand for? What is the name of the publishing company? Where were they?