BOUND BY DOUGLASS AT THE NORTH STAR OFFICES (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. xvi, xvi, 17-125 pages. Small 8vo, publisher's calf-backed printed paper-covered boards, joints starting, lacking paper covering to rear board and about 15% of front board covering with slight loss to title; lacking the frontispiece portrait of Douglass (as do all other copies examined), lacking free endpapers, lacking pages 1-16 but bound with a duplicate of the title page and preface, modern red ink markings to front pastedown and first title page, red ink spot to fore-edge of pages 91-104, foxing, moderate dampstaining; early owners' signatures on front pastedown, page 32, and rear endpapers. Boston: Anti-Slavery Office, 1847; Rochester: North Star Office, 1848
third edition, second state--bound and issued by douglass at his press. Late in 1847, not long after returning from his period of English exile, Frederick Douglass moved from Boston to upstate New York and began publishing his own newspaper, to be called the "North Star." He brought with him some loose printed sheets of the Boston Anti-Slavery Society's 1847 printing of his Narrative. Once established in Rochester, he had them bound up as they are here, with the North Star imprint. We have traced no copies of the North Star binding with the frontispiece plate; he apparently did not bring the engravings along with the text sheets. The disruption involved in transporting the loose sheets several hundred miles may have led to the major error seen in this example: a duplicate of the first signature being substituted for the entire second signature. Complete copies of this scarce issue, believed to be the only book Douglass ever issued from his own press, have brought upwards up $30,000 at auction.
