THE LEPER. A charming manuscript transcription of this American poem, which was originally written by Nathaniel Parker Willis in The Sacred Poems collection c1843. The front page is hand drawn with a pencil inscription reading ‘For Kate Southern Jan 7 1850’, and has an embossed border. There are 3 pages to the interior written on both sides in ink (faint pencil lines still visible), the little booklet has been hand stitched at the seam and finished with a silk ribbon. 180mm x 117mm. c1850. ~ Surely not the Kate Southern, a Georgia woman who was charged with murdering a rival for her husband's affections in early 1878. She was sentenced to death by hanging. Almost immediately after news of the sentence got out, the campaign to save Kate's life began to mobilize. Her attorneys mounted an appeal to Georgia's Governor to commute the sentence. This included numerous depositions from Kate's family members (including her husband) which attempted to show that she was provoked into killing Narcissa. It also helped that Kate had recently given birth and descriptions of Kate in prison with her baby where she awaited her execution helped the media campaign to save her life. Petitions with thousands of signatures (mostly women) were sent pleading for clemency. The campaign worked. Kate's sentence was commuted to ten years in prison to be spent in a Georgia prison camp