99
●
(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION—
NARRATIVES.) [JACOBS, HARRIET].
Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl,
Written by Herself. Edited by Lydia
Maria Child.
306 pages. 8vo, recently
rebound in 19th century style black
morocco-backed marbled paper-covered
boards; spine with 5 raised bands, title in
gilt in two panels; some foxing throughout.
Boston: For the Author, 1861
[2,000/3,000]
THE FIRST EDITION OF THE MOST WIDELY
READ WOMAN
’
S SLAVE NARRATIVE
.
For
many years this book was thought to be just
another fictional slave narrative, something
between an abolitionist narrative and a novel,
better than most, but written by Lydia Maria
Child, one of the most widely read women
authors of the 19th century. However, through
years of exhaustive research by professor Jean
Fagan Yellin (“Harriet Jacobs, a Life,” Basic
Civitas, 2004), Harriet Jacobs, has emerged as
a very real person, born in Chowan County
North Carolina in 1813. After an extraordi-
nary life, Harriet Jacobs died in Washington
D.C. in 1897. Afro Americana, 5191.
99
100
●
(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) NARRATIVE GALLAUDET, THOMAS H.
A Statement with Regard to The Moorish Prince Abduhl Rahhahman.
8 pages,
8vo, removed; a few spots through the text; fore-edge slightly darkened.
New York: Fanshaw, 1828
[600/800]
FIRST EDITION OF A RARE AND HIGHLY UNUSUAL ACCOUNT
.
Abuhl Rahhahman, or
Abdul Rahman Ibrahim, was born in 1767, to the ruler of Timbuktu, in today’s Mali. At the
age of 26, the prince was captured in an ambush and sold into slavery, eventually winding up
in Nachez, Mississippi as a field hand. A New Yorker by the name of Andrew Marshalk met
him and attempted to secure his freedom. He persuaded Ibrahim to write a letter in Arabic to be
sent (mistakenly!) to the Sultan of Morocco. Ibrahim, had simply written a few lines from the
Koran, but the Sultan of Morocco realized what had happened and was moved to aid the
Moslem prince. Meanwhile the American government found itself in a potentially embarrassing
position. Henry Clay, Secretary of State, urged President Adams to aid in the repatriation of
the Prince, who by now was married with 13 children. Thomas Gallaudet, founder of the
School for the Deaf, wrote the present pamphlet to raise funds to Ibrahim and his family’s return.
101
●
(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION—NARRATIVES.) LARISON, C. W. M.D.
Sylvia Du Bois, (Now 116 Yeers Old) A Biography of The Slav who Whipt her
Mistres and Gand her Fredom.
Portrait frontispiece. 124, [8] pages of advertisements
and a sample of another phonetic work. 8vo, original cloth covered boards; text, quite clean
but loose in the binding, needs re-casing.
Ringos, New Jersey: C. W. Larison, 1883
[400/600]
FIRST EDITION OF THIS UNUSUAL SLAVE NARRATIVE
,
dictated to C. W. Larison, a country
doctor and advocate of a form of phonetics of his own invention. As strange as this piece may
seem, it is an authentic narrative of a woman born into slavery in 1768. Reprinted and tran-
scribed as part of the Schomburg’s series Library of 19th Century Black Women Writers.
