Mar 30, 2023 - Sale 2631

Sale 2631 - Lot 48

Price Realized: $ 8,125
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(SLAVERY & ABOLITION.) The Genius of Universal Emancipation. 5 plates. [4], 200, 212 pages. Collective title page, index leaf, 24 issues, 2 supplements, and one related pamphlet bound in one volume. 8vo, contemporary 1/2 calf over marbled boards, moderate wear, rebacked with cloth; minor wear and foxing to contents, lacking pages 105-112 of the December 1831 issue; many issues inscribed with subscriber's name above the masthead. Baltimore, MD, April 1830 to August 1832
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This monthly abolitionist magazine was founded in 1821 by editor Benjamin Lundy, who is regarded as perhaps America's first full-time abolitionist. William Lloyd Garrison served briefly as co-editor through March 1830, but his arrest for libel caused an amicable separation. This volume begins immediately after Garrison's departure as the start of the magazine's "Third Series." Garrison's departure is alluded to on page 1: "Again I find myself, alone, at the editorial desk."

The first 6 issues in this volume are illustrated with small masthead engravings after Josiah Wedgwood's famous "Am I Not a Man and a Brother" illustration. Furthermore, the May 1830 issue has a plate bearing an etching after the same image. Other plates include portraits of Elisha Tyson and Benjamin Lay, and a slave sale scene in the shadow of the Capitol titled "United States Slave Trade 1830" (all in the first 4 issues of the volume), plus and a small woodcut plate in the October 1830 issue.

Bound in before the June 1830 issue is an 8-page pamphlet, "A Brief Sketch of the Trial of William Lloyd Garrison, for an Alleged Libel on Francis Todd of Massachusetts." This volume was originally the property of prominent western New York abolitionist Lyman A. Spalding, whose name (often cropped) is inscribed above the masthead of many issues. Afro-Americana 4066 (though lacking most of these issues); not in Blockson or Lomazow.