"NO ARGUMENT WILL REACH THE MAN WHO IS NOT CONVINCED BY THIS REMARKABLE REVELATION OF THE INTERIOR LIFE OF SLAVERY"

(KEMBLE, Frances Anne). The Views of Judge Woodward and Bishop Hopkins on Negro Slavery in the South, Illustrated from the Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation by Mrs. Frances Anne Kemble. [New York: Harper & Brothers, 1863]. Octavo, original printed paper wrappers; pp. 32.

First edition of this abolitionist response to the 1860 pro-slavery speech of Judge George Washington Woodward and the 1861 pro-slavery letter of Episcopalian Bishop John Henry Hopkins, using extensive excerpts from Kemble's recently published Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation to refute Woodward's and Hopkins' claims, with wood-engraved vignette of a "badly-whipped slave" who escaped from a plantation to join the Union forces on the front wrapper and title page.

Kemble was a famous English actress when she married the wealthy American Pierce Butler. The "co-owner of a plantation off the coast of Georgia… [he] brought his wife to visit the plantation" in the late 1830s (Rose, 419). Published the same year as the Emancipation Proclamation, Kemble's Journal "has long been recognized by historians as unique in the literature of American slavery" (Desmond Gahan). Her "account is a realistic picture, filled with burning indignation and pity, of slavery in operation… The Journal's role in the Civil War and the slavery controversy is of considerable significance… It fills a place in the history of the 'peculiar institution' occupied by no other writer" (Downs, 82, 91). "Other writers had produced volumes based on personal experiences with slavery, but none had lived on one of the largest plantations in the South with a slave population which exceeded 700 men, women and children. Nor did any previous chronicles match Kemble's descriptions in vividness and detail" (Venet, 89-91).

"The following narrative is divided into five chapters… with head quotations from the extraordinary speech of Judge Woodward, and still more extraordinary letter of Bishop Hopkins, as published and distributed by the Democratic State Central Committee. These startling views of the Judge and the Bishop are best met by the record of Southern Slavery as it is, from the pen of a Christian woman, who had unusual means of observation, and every motive to soften her account of its barbarities" (Preface; italics as in original). With advertisement for Kemble's Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation on rear wrapper. Sabin 37330. Blockson 10196. Faint pencil owner signature on front wrapper.

Short closed tear to upper margin near spine of front wrapper, title page and first leaf of text, not touching letterpress; text clean. Light soiling and toning to wrappers. A very good copy, scarce in the original wrappers.