Search Results: Slavery, African Americana for Huntington from Reginald C. Williams Rare Books

Octavo, original gilt-stamped navy cloth, top edge gilt, uncut. Text is very good, gilt on spine faded, lightest rubbing to gilt-stamped cloth cover, wear and rubbing to the tips. A good to very good copy. First edition of Dr. Sinclair's powerful 1905 indictment of America's history of slavery, the failures and hypocrisy of Reconstruction, the war on black suffrage, and the terror of ongoing public lynchings and burnings, asking "How long are these things to go on?" A rare copy in the original cloth. Born enslaved in 1858, Dr. Sinclair graduated from Howard University and earned his medical degree from Meharry Medical College before becoming a practicing physician. Serving as "the financial secretary of Howard University from 1888 to 1903, he participated in Du Bois' Niagara Movement, helped to launch the NAACP in 1909, and became a leading anti-Bookerite. Sinclair's Aftermath of Slavery broke with standard white interpretations, as he condemned slavery and the hypocrisy of Reconstruction and strongly… Read More

First edition of "the most complete record available" of the controversial Pennsylvania case on fugitive slaves, establishing a "precedent set in federal and state courts… and important cause célèbre for the antislavery movement," crucial in asserting a clear path for the following year's Dred Scott decision, and provoking a "legal crisis… that led to the Civil War," elusive in original cloth. An overall clean text with soiling on top of pages 1-16, & pgs. 161-191 and contemporary ink marginalia by Strawbridge on a few pages. John Strawbridge is inscribed in old ink on page prior to title page. A book which has become difficult to find in the original cloth.

224,[3];iv,338,[6]pp. Two volumes. Half calf and marbled boards, spines rebacked in antique style calf with gilt-lettered spines. Edges lightly word, boards rubbed. Text tanned, corners rounded. Very good. FIRST AMERICAN EDITION of James Beattie's overarching treatise on various philosophical subjects, originally printed in Edinburgh. Beattie was a professor of philosophy at Aberdeen University, and a member of the Scottish Enlightenment who promoted Common Sense philosophy. A handbook of practical ethics for Beattie's students, with a lengthy and vociferous condemnation of the institution of slavery. A very important and very difficult set to get as both volumes were published two years apart and rarely turn up together. Beattie's thoughts on slavery abolition undoubtedly resonated with American abolitionists of the time. EVANS 24081, 2663

First American Edition. Hardcover. 542pp., Large Octavo, Publisher s Burgundy cloth binding with gilt-stamped illustrations. With two maps (one folding), engraved front portrait and 50 woodcut plates, all protected with tissue guards. A superb fresh copy now housed in a custom slipcase. First American edition after the first printing in London the prior year. Baker's expedition through Egypt down to Lake Albert in present day Uganda and to the Red Sea was the "first practical step . . . to suppress the slave-trade of Central Africa." He emphasizes the fertility and potential abundance of the varying lands, whose successes are hindered by corrupt governments. The majority of the team's interactions with various people and cultures are recounted with a sensational and colonialist flair. Baker (1821-1893) was a British explorer, naturalist, and big game hunter, chiefly remembered for his exploration of central Africa and the "discovery" of the Albert N'yanza (Lake Albert), the source of the Nile River.… Read More

Publishers Cloth. 12mo. Stated third edition. 347 pp. + ads. Very good. Small repair at crown of spine. Some light foxing. SIGNED in ink by the author on the front free end paper: "presented by Mr. Wm. L. Stone." rare third edition of this unusual account, involving sojourner truth ('isabella'). In 1832, Isabella Baumfree, who had freed herself from bondage in upstate New York and later renamed herself 'Sojourner Truth,' met Elijah Pierson, prophet of a religious sect. She joined with her infant child and met Robert Matthias, another member of the sect, who vied for leadership, claiming to be Jesus Christ incarnate. Matthias was accused of killing Elijah Pierson with some poisoned blackberries. Isabella, his servant, was of course implicated. In the end, Isabella was not only cleared, but awarded a sum of money after she sued the court for slander--the first black person to win such a suit. Not in the Blockson Collection. A rare inscribed coy now housed in a custom clamshell box with leather label.… Read More

Octavo, original blind stamped brown-gray cloth. Interior generally clean with mild & occasional foxing, mere trace of damp staining at the rear, very mild edgewear, minimal soiling to original cloth. A very good copy now housed in a brown custom cloth clamshell box. First edition of the publisher and editor's memoir issued the year after his murder—killed by "five bullets in his heart, while defending his fourth press from an armed, arsonist mob"—only two years after he denounced the lynching by fire of a free black man, as an act of "savage barbarity," with introduction by John Quincy Adams, a seminal record of a key event in America's abolitionist battle and the history of the First Amendment. A book seldom found in the publisher's cloth.

Octavo, original pictorial tan cloth.
First edition of one of the very few published records of African Americans in combat in WWI, authored by the white captain of the 371st, with photographic frontispiece, two large folding battle maps and many in-text illustrations, a handsome copy in original cloth.
Hardcover, tan cloth boards decorated in black. Exterior shows spotting and soiling, edges and spine is darkened and there is a small pencil line on the rear board. Edges and corners show bumps/light wear. The internal binding is good and text pages are tight. No hinge issues, no signatures or bookplates, no library markings. Pages are toned due to age and there is some light scattered foxing/spotting present. Page 17 is a crease in the upper outside corner where the page was folded over at some point. The rear the book has a pocket which contains two maps. Both are present and in excellent shape. Overall, the book is in near fine condition now Mylar protected.

Original brown cloth, original printed paper spine label; pp. 5-227, (228), (blank leaf). with 11 haunting wood engravings. Text has moderate foxing throughout as do the plates. First Boston edition, issued by famed abolitionist Isaac Knapp, of Bourne's provocative work, preceded only by the 1834 Middleton, CT. first edition, this incendiary antebellum work is by the controversial minister who was expelled from the church for verbally attacking ministers and slave-owners in his congregation—"one of the first radical abolitionists"—featuring eleven woodcut-engraved illustrations of slavery's "appalling and atrocious criminality," exceptional in unrestored original cloth."Bourne was a crucial figure in the history of the antislavery movement… One of the first radical abolitionists… he was a founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society (1833) and a frequent contributor to Garrison's famous paper The Liberator" (ANB). Born in England, Bourne emigrated to the U.S. in 1804. Following a brief… Read More

Octavo, original blind-stamped brown cloth. Text generally fresh with light scattered foxing, gilt on spine surprisingly brighter than expected, cloth with rubbing and wear along the hinges, but fully intact. Uncommon, especially so in publisher s cloth. First edition of Timothy Mather Cooley's important biography of Reverend Lemuel Haynes, who fought in the American Revolution as a Minuteman, penned one of the earliest attacks on slavery by an African American and is considered the "first black person to lead a white church. Born to an African father and white mother, Haynes was abandoned in infancy and raised as an indentured servant to a white family. After his release, he "lent his own newly gained liberty to the defense of American freedom" when he became a Minuteman, joined the Continental army, and fought with Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga (Bay in Americanism, 25). "In the army, perhaps inspired by his Revolutionary experiences, Haynes penned Liberty Further Extended, an attack on the institution… Read More

Clean original maroon cloth with gilt title on spine. Pictorial frontispiece and half title page. Additional fourteen steel engravings. Interior of text is tight, clean & intact. A few lightly foxed pages. Prior owners' inscription. Spine ends lightly rubbed, spine sunned, else a near-fine copy. Contents: Superintendent of Nurses; Ladies who ministered to the sick, wounded, in camp, field and hospitals; Ladies who forwarded supplies to the hospitals; Services among the freedmen and refugees; Services in soldiers' homes; Services in the National Cause; Services in soldiers' homes; Services in the National Cause. Military, Civil War, Nursing; Steel engravings; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 799 pages.