Black Americana and Abolition – 32 – Bauman Rare Books - July 2022 First Edition Of 19th-Century John C. Hurd’s Topics Of Jurisprudence, Basis For His Law Of Freedom And Bondage (1858-62) 51. HURD, John C. Topics of Jurisprudence Connected with Conditions of Freedom and Bondage. New York, 1856. Octavo, late 19th-century marbled paper wrappers. $2400. First edition of Hurd’s influential work, the foundation for his two-volume Law of Freedom and Bondage. “Unlike many other slave societies, colonial America never developed a systematic law of slavery.” Hurd’s Topics of Jurisprudence was “contemporaneous with the shifting Southern rationales for slavery. The new Southern view was that slavery was not only necessary but a positive good” (Bush, 418, 422n). “Critiquing statutes and judicial decisions on slavery… Hurd probed conflicts” between the natural and positive laws of slavery (Hadden & Brophy). This is deemed the “first part of his magisterial” two-volume Law of Freedom and Bondage (185862) (Wiecek, 241n), which is viewed as “the most profound legalistic treatise on slavery” (Howes H827). Small owner signature on title page. Text generally with occasional gutter-edge toning, light edge-wear to wrappers. A near-fine copy. First Edition Of One Of James Weldon Johnson’s Final Works, Negro Americans, What Now?, 1934 52. JOHNSON, James Weldon. Negro Americans, What Now? New York, 1934. Octavo, original red cloth, dust jacket. $1250. First edition of the last major work by Johnson—“one of the most commanding figures of the Harlem Renaissance”—directed at his fellow Black Americans, a clear-eyed summing-up of the dire realities of their lives and useful strategies for the Black struggle, in very scarce dust jacket. Published the decade of his death, here Johnson “capped his best advice to the generations ahead… [and] inventories the strengths of Black America.” He “inventories the strengths of Black America,” including the Black church and the NAACP, and the importance of the Black press (Smith, 198). Contemporary owner signature. Book fine; light edge-wear, small closed tears to very scarce near-fine dust jacket.
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