A New England merchant who made a fortune shipping warming-pans to the West Indies writes his own defense, without punctuation, and in a later edition adds a page of commas for readers to distribute as they please. Dexter bought a title, kept a hearse in the garden and staged his own funeral. The book is a genuine American oddity and knows it. Fifty-seven plates by painters including Munch and Cole follow the merchant from garden to forest, matching a book that wanders as freely as its author's punctuation.
