COPPERHEAD WALES

About the Book

A young man’s struggle with conscience when his country is ripped apart and his hometown wages war on itself.

In 1860, handsome and wealthy Princeton graduate Chadwick Wales foresees a bright future with his childhood sweetheart, the beautiful and rich New Yorker Clarissa Renfield. But his mother, a New England textile heiress, has kept dark secrets from him and faces a scandalous divorce from Chad’s loyal Virginian father. Sensing Chad’s inner conflict over secession, a charismatic Southerner introduces him to the Copperheads, Northerners who favor the South and plan to fi rebomb Manhattan. Chad’s probing intellect and his revulsion for war trap him in a conspiracy that threatens his life, his liberty, his betrothal and his soul. Both the glittering surface and the squalid underside of New York City during the American Civil War are brought to life, from yachts and mansions to tenements and brothels. Brutal riots, Wall Street hoaxes and unspeakable human catastrophe expose and refute the persistent myth of America’s past.

C. D. Webb’s previous novels include “Jake and Jasmine” (cited as one of the top ten genre novels of the year) and “The Credence of Christopher Craig” (according to a notice in the Midwest Book Review, “Christopher Craig is a good book. It might even be a great book.”)

About the Author

Copperhead Wales is C. D. Webb’s third published novel. He began his writing career, at age sixteen, as a poet. A selection of his poetry was anthologized in Rolfe Humphries volume New Poems by American Poets #2, published by Ballantine Books.

His undergraduate and graduate study focused on American, British and French literature. He also has an interdisciplinary master’s degree in psychology and sociology, and served on the Board of Directors of the C. G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology.

As he continued to publish poems in regional journals, he simultaneously launched an administrative career with cultural institutions, leaving his post as Development Consultant on the staff of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to establish The Charles Webb Company, Inc., specializing in capital funding for art and history museums, historic houses, musical organizations, and ballet, opera and theater companies. Under his management the firm acquired clients in 35 states, the United Kingdom, and Italy.

For several years he was Chairman of the Board of the Circle Repertory Company in New York, which deepened his interest in the theater. He has written five plays, which he intends to publish in a single volume in the future.

Now in the final editing stages,The Playoff is a murder mystery and coming of age tale set in the Southern mountains during the segregation era, in which a respected Black high school teacher is arrested for a crime he did not commit. Publication is expected next year.

C. D. Webb’s new novel, now underway, concerns an evangelical fundamentalist preacher whose life becomes steadily more corrupt and licentious, resulting in his fall to, rather than from, grace. Immortal Wounds, a volume of short stories, is nearing completion.

His previously published novels include Jake and Jasmine, and The Credence of Christopher Craig.