My Name is Wesley Robert Wells [Two editions]

November 23, 2021

Rare Books, Documents, Photos, and Artwork

Lot 129

My Name is Wesley Robert Wells [Two editions]

Estimate: $300 - $400

Have one like this?

About this Lot

Description

Wesley Robert WELLS My Name is Wesley Robert Wells [Two editions]

Offered for sale by 'A.Adebayo, bookseller' - for more information please contact Andrew via email at adebayobookco@gmail.com

[Afro-Americana]. [Wesley Robert Wells]. [Wells Defense Committee].

Wesley Robert WELLS. My Name is Wesley Robert Wells. San Francisco: San Francisco Civil Rights Congress, February 1951. Softcover. First Edition. Side-stapled pamphlet in publisher’s original illustrated and textured self-wrappers. Measuring approx. 5.2 by 7.5 inches. 31 pages. Minor edgewear, age toning. Staples lightly oxidized, still sound. Very Good or better overall.

Wesley Robert WELLS. My Name is Wesley Robert Wells. N.p.: State Defense Committee for Wesley Robert Wells, 1951. Softcover. First Edition. Side-stapled pamphlet in publisher’s original illustrated self-wrappers. Measuring approx. 4.5 by 5.9 inches. 26 pages. Clean throughout. Minor edgewear, age toning. Staples slightly oxidized, still sound. Printing error at back panel obscures second paragraph, though still legible. Very Good or better overall.

Two attractive staplebound pamphlets issued in defense of Wesley Robert Wells in 1951. Excluding commentary on the Wells case at back panel, the State Defense Committee for Wesley Robert Wells faithfully reproduces the contents of the San Francisco Civil Rights Congress pamphlet: Buddy Green's foreword, eleven chapters of first-person prison narrative, and Ida Rothstein's appeal "WELLS CAN BE SAVED."

"The story—assembled from letters and legal documents written during Wells' long sojourn in condemned row—is being published so that the public may know the true story of the man the Governor of the State of California dismisses brusquely as a 'five-time felon.' ¶ Wells' case is now on appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court on the ground he has been denied the 'due process' of law guaranteed him by the U.S. Constitution. On these dramatic pages you will find the story of what it is like to be a Negro in the prison system of the supposedly enlightened state of California." (Excerpt from Publisher's Note)

Both wonderfully preserved, scarce.

Wesley Robert Wells was sent to San Quentin State Prison at age 19 with a conviction of ‘receiving stolen goods’ (a suit of clothes). Released in 1941, he was re-incarcerated in 1942 with another ‘stolen goods’ charge (a car battery). Five years later, during a hearing at Folsom Prison, Wells threw a brass cuspidor, striking a guard in the head. In response, he was sentenced to death under California Penal Code Section 4500.

Near the end of March 1954, nearly seven years after the incident, and two weeks before Wells’ scheduled date of execution, Governor Goodwin J. Knight issued a proposal to commute Wells’ death sentence to life imprisonment.

Ask a Question