The Forgotten Redbeardian Hobo | J. Willian Schweitzer, Kevin I. Slaughter | Booklet Set | SA1305

This is a three booklet set.

Practically nothing is known about J. William Schweitzer, the self-styled “Intellectual Hobo” who roamed the margins of society under names like J. Merrill Leighton, “Von Sinbad,” and “The Baron.” Yet in the pages of Hobo News, the radical organ of the International Brotherhood Welfare Association, he emerged as a fiery advocate of Might is Right, a poet of tramp life, and a scathing critic of the wage system and respectable reform. This two-part collection marks the first serious attempt to document his strange and fascinating life.

Arbeit gathers all known writings by Schweitzer—a volatile mix of Stirnerite egoism, Redbeardian rhetoric, and hobo myth-making. Its companion volume, Liebe, collects every known newspaper account of Schweitzer’s life, including his arrest for counterfeiting and possession of bomb-making manuals, his unlikely marriage to a wealthy heiress, and the legal tangle that followed her tragic death.

Editor Kevin I. Slaughter introduces the set as “the complete recorded life” of this mysterious knight of the road. Known only in fragments, Schweitzer now steps forward as the “Redbeard Hobo”—a man who turned outlaw philosophy into lived experience. This limited edition of fifty sets is the first and only attempt to preserve his legacy.