?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000
(SLAVERY.) C.W. Larison. Silvia Dubois (Now 116 Yers Old): A Biografy of the Slav who Whipt her Mistres and Gand her Fredom. Frontispiece plate, 2 full-page illustrations. 124, [8] pages including author's ads. Octavo, 7¼ x 4½ inches, original plain cloth, moderate wear and detached from text block; minor foxing to frontispiece, minimal wear to contents. Ringoes, NJ: published by the author, 1883
First edition. The story of a woman who was born into slavery in New Jersey, and then at age 14 was brought to Great Bend, PA, where her owners operated a tavern. After suffering extended abuse, she struck her mistress in self-defense and fled. She lived as a free woman in New Brunswick, NJ and then helped operate a tavern on New Jersey's Sourland Mountain.
In 1883, she was interviewed three times by C.W. Larison, who was interested in local history and was also the inventor of a phonetic spelling system he called orthoepy or "Phonic Orthography." The entire book is printed in this system, except for an explanatory note and advertisements at the end. It was issued in a standard English edition in 1988. One other copy of this first edition has been traced at auction since 1984.
