(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION) Brown Henry Box Narrative of the Lif

Sale 2420 - Lot 275

Price Realized: $ 4,000

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

Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900

(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) Brown, Henry Box. Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown. Frontispiece plate. ii, vi, 61, viii pages. 12mo, publisher's cloth gilt, moderate wear, rebacked with original endpapers retained; moderate wear and foxing to contents; early owner's signature on front free endpaper. Manchester, England, 1851

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First English edition of a rare narrative of an extraordinary escape, first printed in Boston in 1849. Henry Brown had himself packed up in a box and shipped from Virginia to Philadelphia, where he escaped via the Underground Railroad system to Boston. The account was taken down from dictation by Charles Stearn, one of the publishers. After the 1850 passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill, Brown found asylum in Great Britain. This edition is expanded to include six pages of testimonials on his anti-slavery lectures and panorama. Sabin 90865 (first edition); Work, page 311. Only one other copy of either edition known at auction--the first edition sold at Swann, 26 March 2015, lot 150.