Burr and Hamilton: A drama for voices. By Jeff Humphries with woodcuts by Betsy Bowen.

This is not a work of history. It takes liberties with form and substance that are not permitted to the professional historian. What does it offer in return that they cannot? The story is reduced to an absolute minimum of circumstantial detail on the assumption that such pruning, severe and judicious, might cause an organic line to be revealed - this is a principle of Japanese art, and not the only one in play here. It will, of course, be for others to say if this historical minimalism has been successful, whether the essential, stark, brutal shape of the events has been revealed. -JH

Found items are as is and final sale.