Mar 21, 2013 - Sale 2308

Sale 2308 - Lot 66

Unsold
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
I NEVER SEEK THE PRAISE OF NEWSPAPERS. . . [BUT] (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) CHILD, LYDIA MARIA. Letters from New York. 276 pages. 8vo, original blind-stamped brown cloth, lettered in gilt on the spine; some wear to the head and heel of the spine, with slight loss of cloth to the top, the second blank bears a most unusual book stamp of a red dove. Enclosed in a specially made clam-shell box. New York: Charles S. Francis, 1843
Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

first edition, bearing a full-page presentation on the front-free end-paper, dated new york, oct. 25, 1843: "Dear Sir: I never seek the praise of newspapers, nor do I generally place much value upon it; knowing how such things are usually bought and sold in the market. Editors have accused me of being too stiffly independent on this point; and, perhaps I am; but I cannot for the life of me value puffs given in the way of trade. I know them, at a glance, to be the base coin whereby selfishness traffics with vanity.
But when I see a notice like that of the "New York Letters," in the Boston Courier, so spontaneous, whole-hearted, and eloquent,--it does make me happy, and I will not allow false modesty to repress the utterance of my gratitude and pleasure. I did not seek your notice, therefore I thank you for it. It shows that my spontaneous and earnest Letters were received by the writer in the same spirit in which they were poured forth from my heart; therefore I doubly thank. I understand that you bought a copy of the book, and fearing my bookseller neglectful to send you one (the word "copy" crossed out), I do myself the pleasure of asking your acceptance of a volume. Yours, very respectfully and gratefully, L. Maria Child." At the top of the page, the recipient, J. T. Buckingham (founder and editor of the Boston Courier) or the young lady to whom he must have passed the volume along to, (Miss N.B. Guiteau) has written "letter to J.T. Buckingham" and added in parentheses at the bottom "(signed)." Lydia Maria Child, American abolitionist and women's rights activist, sent this copy to J. T. Buckingham, who in turn must have given it to Miss Guiteau (no relation to James A. Garfield's assassin) whose name appears in a different ink on the front paste-down together with a contemporary newspaper article about Buckingham's favorable review. The rear paste-down bears a beautifully hand-written quote from a William Wordsworth ode: "Thanks to the human heart by which we live. . ." Possibly from Buckingham to Ms.Guiteau. Child's journals, fiction and domestic manuals reached wide audiences from the 1820s through the 1850s. She at times shocked her audience, as she tried to take on issues of both male dominance and white supremacy in some of her stories. She was the author of the famous abolitionist work, "An appeal in Behalf of that Class of Americans Called Africans." (1833).