Mar 24, 2022 - Sale 2598

Sale 2598 - Lot 2

Price Realized: $ 9,375
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(SLAVERY & ABOLITION.) The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself. Frontispiece portrait. xxiv, [2], 360 pages. 12mo, contemporary 1/4 calf, worn, boards and frontispiece detached and binding split along backstrip; lacking leaf b2 (subscriber list, pages xxvii-xxviii) and folding plate, minor foxing, lacking rear free endpaper. Norwich, England, 1794

Additional Details

"Eighth edition, enlarged" of one of the first published slave narratives. Olaudah Equiano (circa 1745-1797) was enslaved as a child in the Kingdom of Benin (now southeast Nigeria), survived the Middle Passage, was given the name Gustavus Vassa, and spent time in Barbados, Virginia, England, Montserrat, and Georgia before buying his own freedom in 1766. As a free man in England he worked as a seaman and was a first-wave abolitionist. Sabin 98661.