New Acquisitions Spring 2022 – 11 – Bauman Rare Books Very Scarce First Revised And “Enlarged” Edition Of Preeminent Black Abolitionist WilliamWells Brown’s Narrative, 1848, Issued While A Fugitive Slave 11. BROWN, William Wells. Narrative of William W. Brown, A Fugitive Slave. Boston, 1848. Octavo, original printed brown front wrapper, renewed spine and rear wrapper; pp. 144, custom clamshell box. $8500. Rare 1848 expanded edition of William Wells Brown’s first autobiography, with engraved frontispiece portrait. Brown, who escaped slavery in 1834, shared with Frederick Douglass a similar early history and a friendship that occasionally spiraled into rivalry. Brown’s Narrative, a seminal Black autobiography and a work of profound influence, “earned him international fame… exceeded in popularity and sales only by the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)” (Oxford Companion to African American Literature, 106). His Narrative “gave a more comprehensive portrait of slavery thanDouglass’, since Brown…had seenfirsthand the cruelties of the slave trade in the Mississippi Valley” (Mayer, All on Fire, 389). “A universal reformer, Brown worked not only for emancipation and the removal of racial restrictions, but also for the promotion of peace and temperance. His publications, together with his reform efforts, are a substantial legacy” (ANB). This very elusive edition is the first to contain, in Brown’s words, “a new preface, which includes a letter frommy oldmaster” (iv). Stated “Second Edition, Enlarged” on title page: despite the text’s printed “Note,” calling this a “Third Edition,” this is the second edition overall, preceded by the 1847 first edition and its second printing. With fragile original printed front wrapper, original stitching. Interior generally fresh with light scattered foxing, occasional soiling, faint dampstaining to front wrapper.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDg3OTM=