John C. Lester

John C. Lester is best known as the co-author, with D. L. Wilson, of Ku Klux Klan: Its Origin, Growth and Disbandment, a work written in the 1880s and later published in book form in 1905. Project Gutenberg and other library records identify him as the author of that book and suggest it is the main reason his name remains in circulation.

Sources available online describe him as a resident of Pulaski, Tennessee, and a former Confederate officer. A historical introduction reproduced by Project Gutenberg says that Lester and Wilson were living in Pulaski when the booklet was written, and that Lester was counted among the six original members of the first local Klan circle. Another Tennessee history source describes him as a captain in the Third Tennessee Infantry, a practicing attorney in Pulaski after the war, and later a member of the Tennessee legislature.

Because most easy-to-find material about Lester centers on the Klan, there is not much broadly confirmed biographical detail beyond that. For readers, that means he is less a fully documented literary figure than a historical name tied to one influential and troubling Reconstruction-era text.