Elizabeth De Wolfe publishes foreword to new edition of 1894 memoir of girl spy
Elizabeth De Wolfe, Ph.D., professor of history and chair of the Department of History & Philosophy, has published, with the Lexington (Kentucky) Public Library, a foreword to a new edition of an 1894 memoir of a girl spy.
The Real Madeline Pollard: a diary of ten weeks' association with the plaintiff in the famous Breckinridge-Pollard Scandal was first published in 1894 in the wake of a national political scandal involving a U.S. Congressman and his mistress of ten years. In order to gain an advantage in court, the congressman hired a girl spy to feign friendship with his former mistress and gather advantageous information.
The Real Madeline Pollard is a tell-all book recounting the spy鈥檚 encounter with Pollard. Originally published on the cheap and with a pseudonymous author, the book quickly fell from public view, and the identity of the author remained unknown.
In her ongoing research on this scandal, De Wolfe discovered the identity of the author and located the only extant copy of the book. She helped the library conserve the fragile book, which library staff then transcribed and digitized. De Wolfe wrote a foreword to this new edition, which is available for electronic borrowing via the Lexington Public Library.