"THE ONE UNQUESTIONABLY AUTHENTIC AMERICAN SAINT": FIRST EDITION OF ANTHONY BENEZET'S FIRST PUBLISHED ANTISLAVERY WORK, CAUTION AND ADVICE, CONCERNING THE BUYING AND KEEPING OF SLAVES, 1754
(WOOLMAN, John) BENEZET, Anthony). An Epistle… Concerning the Buying and Keeping of Slaves. Philadelphia, 1754.
First edition, issued anonymously, of Benezet's extremely rare "first treatise against the slave trade." A revolutionary work by "the foremost antislavery fighter of the 18th century… one of the first white intellectuals to forcefully make the argument that Africans were indeed human beings." One of the earliest abolitionist works published in America, in contemporary wrappers, from the library of James Moon, Bucks County Quaker abolitionist, with his ownership signatures. $28,500.
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