Though the life of John Paul Jones has been written by several biographers, none of them have made much use of Fanning's Narrative, which is the most circumstantial account of the Bon Homme Richard and Serapis fight, and has the double advantage of being the first in point of time and the only one from the standpoint of any but a senior officer-Fanning being but a midshipman at the time and therefore seeing things from a point of view differing from Jones's or from Dale's as first lieutenant.
The "Narrative" apparently went through two editions (New York, 1806 and 1808); the first anonymously, the second under Fanning's name; but it is quite possible that they are one and the same, save for a different title-page and date, and the omission of twenty-one pages of scandalous matter.
It is one of the rarest items of Americana-Mr. Sabin catalogues but two copies, in the libraries of Harvard and the Boston Atheneum. The Editor has found a third-in the New York Society Library and a fourth was sold lately for $75. Buell, in his life of Jones, refers to an edition of 1825, published in New London, Conn., but as no such New London imprint is known to bibliographers he may be referring to the "Life of Commodore John Paul Jones and Memoirs of Captain Nathaniel Fanning, who served during part of the American Revolution, and died in the service of the United States, at Charleston, South Carolina. Lexington, Ky. Printed for W. Johnson, 1825."
We have had the opportunity of consulting the only copy of