(MILITARY) Henry Ossian Flipper The Colored Cadet at West Po

Sale 2598 - Lot 328

Price Realized: $ 812

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750

(MILITARY.) Henry Ossian Flipper. The Colored Cadet at West Point. 2 portrait plates. [2], 322 pages. 12mo, publisher's gilt pictorial cloth, worn, backstrip chipped; dampstaining to plates only, frontispiece and preliminary leaves worn and detached or nearly so, minor wear to remainder of contents; extensive ownership inscriptions on front pastedown, preface page and elsewhere. New York: Homer Lee, 1878

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Additional Details

First edition of the autobiography of the first Black cadet to graduate from West Point. Afro-Americana 3714; Blockson 7868.

This copy is not in bibliophilic condition. It was owned from at least 1930 to 1974 by a Black man named Robert Young, who wrote six of his addresses in the book, adding "Please don't forget to return this book" and "Please return this book, thanx." He can be traced through draft registration records, the 1940 census for Los Angeles, and the city directories for Santa Barbara, California at these addresses from 1949 to 1978. His full name was Robert Bruce Young (1894-circa 1980), and he worked as a chauffeur, shipping clerk, porter, and custodian. We can safely infer that this rare book was one of his most treasured possessions, but that he occasionally shared Lieutenant Flipper's remarkable story with trusted friends.