Black Americana and Abolition – 19 – Bauman Rare Books - July 2022 “The First American Book To Call For Immediate Emancipation, An End To All Forms Of Racial Discrimination”— The Copy Of Lydia Maria Child’s Beloved Older Brother 28. CHILD, Lydia Maria. An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans. Boston, 1833. Small octavo, original blue-green cloth, custom clamshell box. $6000. First edition of this revolutionary 1833 antislavery work, a rare association copy with the owner signature of Child’s beloved older brother, Convers Francis, with him noting in ink below his signature “from his beloved sister, Mrs. Child.” Child’s revolutionary Appeal is “the most comprehensive indictment of slavery ever written by a white abolitionist… the first American book to call for immediate emancipation, an end to all forms of racial discrimination, and the integration of Americans as equal citizens” (Karcher, 137). This rare association copy belonged to Child’s older brother, Convers Francis, Jr., an influential Unitarian minister and Harvard professor who was “an original member of the Transcendentalist Club” (Encyclopedia of Transcendentalism, 112-13). Text and plates fresh with light scattered foxing mainly to preliminaries, expert restoration to original cloth, some rubbing to scarce original spine label. An extremely good association copy. First Edition Of Lydia Maria Child’s Important 1853 Biography Of Pioneering Abolitionist Isaac Hopper, Scarce In Original Cloth 29. CHILD, Lydia Maria. Isaac T. Hopper: A True Life. Boston, 1853. Octavo, original brown cloth. $2600. First edition of abolitionist Lydia Maria Child’s biography of Quaker abolitionist Isaac Hopper, a seminal figure in the Underground Railroad whose dramatic “Tales of Oppression” vividly document “his ingenuity in outwitting slave-catchers” (ANB). Hopper transformed the antislavery movement by making “assistance to fugitive slaves a quintessential form of abolitionist activism” (Sinha, 119). Lydia Maria Child, who authored this posthumous biography, was editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard when she hired him in 1840, and that October he “penned the first of 79 narratives in a bi-weekly column called Tales of Oppression.” As she notes herein, these “tales,” minimally edited by her, form “a prominent portion of the book.” Hopper helped hundreds to “buy their freedom and have their freedom recognized in the eyes of the law” (Sinha, 119-20). First state, with sheets bulking 1-1/4 inches. Trace of bookplate removal. Minor restorations to spine ends. An excellent copy.
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