Black Americana and Abolition – 8 – Bauman Rare Books - July 2022 1762 Edition Of Anthony Benezet’s Landmark Antislavery Work, Bound In One Volume With Other Quaker Works, With A Contemporary Benezet Provenance 9. BENEZET, Anthony. A Short Account of that Part of Africa, Inhabited by the Negroes. Philadelphia, 1762. BOUND WITH: LAW, William. An Extract from a Treatise Called, The Spirit of Prayer. Philadelphia, 1760. BOUND WITH: HARTLEY, Thomas. A Discourse on Mistakes concerning Religion, Enthusiasm, Experiences, &c. London Printed. Germantown reprinted, 1759 [i.e. 1760]; BOUND WITH: DELL, William. Christ’s Spirit, A Christian’s Strength. Germantown, 1760. Octavo, contemporary three-quarter brown sheep, custom clamshell box. $9000. 1762 greatly expanded and revised edition of the same year’s first edition of Benezet’s pioneering work—“the first practical manual for attacking the slave trade,” together in one volume with Franklin and Hall’s Philadelphia printing of the first American edition of Law’s Extract from a Treatise, and two other Quaker works, with owner inscriptions indicating Benezet gave this book to a local Quaker woman. “Benezet is the pivotal figure in the 18th-century campaign to abolish slavery and the slave trade.” Here, Benezet changed the anti-slavery argument “from an emphasis on religious teaching and philosophical principles” to an emphasis on the humanity of slaves. He had “a tremendous influence on Franklin” (Jackson & Kozel, 62), and was quoted “at length in the great 1792 Parliamentary debates about the abolition of the slave trade” (Encyclopedia I:88). This volume contains Franklin and Hall’s printing of Extract from a Treatise (1750). First American editions of Hartley’s Discourse and Dell’s Christ’s Spirit (1651). This volume has an early and extensive provenance. The Short Account title page bears an inscription in an unidentified hand (not Benezet’s): “E Libris, Gul. Fenthams, dono datus ab, Amico bini dilecto, A. Benezetto” (partially translated as a “book given by a friend”). The volume’s initial blank bears an early owner inscription: “Mary Harvey her Boock[sic] given to her by A Benezetto.” Benezet and his wife were temporarily members of the Quaker community in Burlington, New Jersey. A woman named “Mary Harvey” was listed as one of Burlington’s Quakers. Text generally fresh with light scattered foxing, slight edgewear, rubbing to contemporary boards. A highly desirable copy, a turning point in the antislavery cause, with a rare provenance.
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