Search Results: Slavery from Charles Agvent

Boston, 25 April 1853. Letter. Creases from folding; mounting strip on verso. Very Good. A 2-1/2-page AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED on a 8-1/4" x 6-3/4" sheet of paper folded in half by Sumner to Rev. John L. Blake. Sumner tells Blake that he has only his own copy of his book--ORATIONS & SPEECHES OF CHARLES SUMNER--but that Blake can find a copy in New York. He congratulates Blake on the success of his book and concludes: "My father to whom you kindly refer died at Boston in April 1839. I was at the time in Rome." John Lauris Blake (1788–1857) was an American clergyman and bestselling author, best known for the GENERAL BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. Senator Charles Sumner, perhaps the most influential man in public life after Lincoln at the end of the Civil War, was a notable advocate for emancipation of the slaves and later for civil rights. He was severely beaten on the floor of the United States Senate by Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina in retribution for Sumner's attack on Brooks's uncle,… Read More

Tuskegee, AL, 7 Dec. 1897. Autograph. Mild aging of paper. About Fine. A fine quote--"Be too great to be little"--on a 6-1/2" x 8" page removed from an autograph album SIGNED and dated by Washington in Tuskegee. The verso bears an unknown signature as does the top of the page that Washington has signed, but this could be easily removed or matted over. A wonderful display piece.

New York/Cincinnati: Phillips & Hunt/Walden & Stowe, [1859]. First Edition. Hardcover. Quite shaken with a number of pages loose or detached; lacking one illustration, as noted; occasional stain. Covers worn and stained, gilt worn but readable on spine. Fair to Good only, but rather scarce. Original brown cloth (4" x 5-3/4"); 158, [2] pages. With 9 (of 10) illustrations. This children's storybook contains 5 sections. The first is about the institution of slavery, explaining to children what slavery means. The other 4 sections are stories about particular people. Seven years after Jewett brought out the Illustrated Edition of Harriet Beecher Stowe's UNCLE TOM’S CABIN, 9 of Hammatt Billings' drawings from that edition were used in a short, simply-written collection of abolitionist children's stories. No author's or editor's name appears on the title page. Billings is not given any credit, nor is any mention made of UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. In the introduction by “D.W,” readers are told that the “stories… Read More

New York: Random House, (1967). First Edition. Hardcover. Light soiling to covers and sunning to the spine. Very Good or better in like slipcase. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this novelization of the slave revolt led by Nat Turner is still controversial 45 years later because of Styron's narrative from the perspective of an African-American slave. Copy #253 of 500 SIGNED by the author of this Limited First Edition.

Washington, DC, 1890. Document. Crease marks from folding. Very Good. A deed SIGNED by Bruce as Recorder of Deeds, a position appointed to him by President Benjamin Harrison replacing Frederick Douglass. Bruce is best known as the first African-American to serve a full term in the United States Senate.

Philadelphia, 1863. First Edition. Wraps. Marginal staining. Very Good. Decorated wraps; 15 [1] pages. Addressed to the people of Indiana, Owen argues against those who would make a separate peace with the South. Includes a brief discussion of the Dred Scott case. Robert Dale Owen was the son of Robert Owen, founder of the New Harmony utopian community.

Boston: Isaac Knapp, 1837. First Edition. Hardcover. Private library number in ink at top of title page, contents quite clean; front endpaper lacking; hinges cracked but holding. Some edgewear and staining to covers. Very Good. Original cloth-backed printed boards (4" x 5-3/4"); xii, 126 pages. Complete with a printed note from William Lloyd Garrison. George Thompson was well-known to anti-slavery activists on both sides of the Atlantic. He was a powerful orator and fought for abolition throughout his personal and professional career, often risking his life in the process. “During the fifteen months from August 1834 to November 1835 nothing caused so much excitement in the American press, both pro-slavery and abolitionist, as the anti-slavery mission of the British reformer George Thompson” (Rice, C. Duncan; JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES, Vol. 2, No. 1, April 1968).

[Tuskegee, AL], [early 1906?]. Manuscript. Minor wear with a one-inch closed tear to first sheet. Near Fine. A handwritten manuscript by Washington consisting of 17 pages (numbered 1-3, 7-14, a-f) on 17 8-1/4" x 11" sheets, apparently missing pages 4-6, with a partial typed transcript. The handwritten letter by Washington is to the trustees of the Tuskegee Normal & Industrial Institute and is SIGNED as "Principal." Washington's thorough report on the state of Tuskegee drawn up for his trustees. It is apparently a manuscript draft intended for publication, although we have not found any printed copies. It includes discussion of the institution's guiding principles and challenges in addition to the details of finance and fundraising. Washington acknowledges the difficulty of his unique student body: "The fact that so large a proportion of the students depend upon the cotton crop for the money with which to pay their proportion of the expenses at the school, makes it necessary for many of them to leave… Read More

New York: Atheneum, 1990. First Edition. Hardcover. Slight foxing to bulked text edges, otherwise Fine in a Fine dustwrapper. This novel about a free slave stowaway won the National Book Award.

New York: Atheneum, 1990. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine in a Fine dustwrapper. This novel about a free slave stowaway won the National Book Award.

London: J. Johnson, 1813. Second Edition. Hardcover. Occasional light, small stain but very clean overall. Near Fine with minor wear. Two quarto (8-1/2" x 10-1/2") volumes bound in early calf-backed marbled boards with calf corners, contrasting gilt-lettered morocco spine labels, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt, rebacked. A graphic account of the slave rebellion in Dutch Guiana, 1772- 1777, illustrated with 81 engravings (including 3 folding maps) after drawings by the author by William Blake (13 with an additional 3 attributed to him), Bartolozzi, Benedetti, Barlow, and others. Sabin (91075) called this "one of the richest contemporary accounts of a plantation society in the Americas." According to the DNB, Stedman's narrative is "one of the most vivid indictments of slavery that have been penned." Stedman also depicts the social and natural history of the area in detail, and many of the engravings illuminate his writings on these subjects. Blake's work, among the finest that he did for hire, are… Read More

Milwaukee, WI: Parkman Club Publications, 14 September 1897. First Edition. Softcover. Mostly unopened. Rear wrap neatly detached. Very Good and quite uncommon. Stapled printed green wraps (6-5/8" x 9-1/2"); 211-244 pages plus blank and covers. The Ordinance of 1787 forbade the practice of slavery or involuntary servitude in any form in the Northwest Territory, making it a crime to own and possess humans as slaves. Despite federal law making it a crime to own and possess humans as slaves, slavery existed in Wisconsin. This paper describes a number of case histories, mostly of those bringing slaves to Wisconsin from other states, and the various reactions of Wisconsin residents.

New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1857. First Edition. Softcover. Paper age toned, stitching a bit loose resulting in several detached pages; front wrapper lacking, rear detached, with some chipping to the edges. A Good copy only but complete and original with no library markings. Printed wraps lacking the front cover; complete, pages 393-633 [240 pages]. Grolier American 68; Howes S218; Sabin 33240. One of two simultaneous printings, the other in Washington D.C., for which no precedence has been established. The opinion of the court in this case constitutes the contents of this very important document. Dred Scott was a slave who sued for his freedom in 1846 because he lived for a time in free states before returning with his owner to Missouri, a slave state. He won the initial case but lost on appeal and then filed suit in federal court. The Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, voted 7-2 against Scott's appeal, declaring that all blacks, slaves or free, were not and never could… Read More

1878. Framed Autograph. Fine and attractively presented. A fine AUTOGRAPH dated 1878 with the added notation "Yours very truly" by this great American. Attractively matted and framed to an overall size of 8" x 6".

Chicago: Western Bank Note & Engraving Co., 1868. First Edition. Document. Recently backed with thin paper with several professional repairs of chips and tears. Very Good . Large folio (16-1/4" x 21-3/4") finely engraved and printed on good quality paper with elaborate decorative borders with a "US" monogram to upper corners, a bold calligraphic heading with "ABOLISHING SLAVERY" in prominent decorated letters; at top center is a small vignette of the pyramid and all-seeing eye above an oval vignette of a slave family with child mourning over a cameo portrait of Lincoln. This is followed by the engraved signatures of President Lincoln, Vice President Hamlin, Schuyler Colfax and J. W. Forney (Speaker and Secretary of the Senate), and 164 Senators and Congressmen. An exceedingly rare and beautiful printing of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude ... Shall exist within the United States...." This elaborately engraved Reconstruction-era broadside, is… Read More

New York: Limited Editions Club, 1970. Hardcover. Fine in a Fine slipcase. Denver Gillen. Quarto (7-1/4" x 10-1/2") bound in brown-black buckram with a Swedish-made textured brown Tumba Ingres paper sides and a brown leather spine label; 236 pages. Introduction by Booker T. Washington III. Illustrated with twelve full-page and two double-page color plates by Denver Gillen. Copy #970 of 1500 SIGNED by the artist on the colophon page.

New York: Limited Editions Club, 1970. Hardcover. Bookplate tipped to front pastedown. Fine in a close to Fine slipcase with mild scuffing. Denver Gillen. Quarto (7-1/4" x 10-1/2") bound in brown-black buckram with a Swedish-made textured brown Tumba Ingres paper sides and a brown leather spine label; 236 pages. Introduction by Booker T. Washington III. Illustrated with 12 full-page and 2 double-page color plates by Denver Gillen. Copy #39 of 1500 SIGNED by the artist on the colophon page. Monthly Letter laid in.