Mar 10, 2011 - Sale 2239

Sale 2239 - Lot 110

Price Realized: $ 6,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,500 - $ 5,000
SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION--NARRATIVES.)--FISHER, THOMAS & OTTOBAH CUGUANO. The Negro's Memorial or Abolitionist's Catechism. Title-page in bold red and black letters. 127 pages, 8vo, later calf-backed marbled paper-covered boards; front cover detached; later end-papers loose. London: Printed for the Author by Hatchard and Co, 1825

Additional Details

first edition, inscribed "for the edification of mr. [illegible], from the author, thos. Fisher, esq. Nov. 1830." An exceedingly rare work, made all the more so by the intriguing inscription. Unfortunately a binder trimmed the top of the page-edges at an early date. This abolitionist work has, as an appendix, the "Narrative of Ottobah Cuguano, a Native of Africa; published by Himself in the Year 1787." The present is in fact the second edition of that work. Fisher's "Catechism" is written in a series of Q and A in eight sections. He begins with some simple definitions: "What is slavery?" "Is slavery consistent with the political Constitution of Great Britain?"and so forth. He then progresses to the political and economical complexities of the slave-trade: "Q 31: Has any consideration been made for the purpose of ascertaining the political and commercial importance of a more legitimate intercourse wit Africa?" Fisher defends the Haitian revolution, not at all popular at the time, and attempts to dispel some of the more lurid tales of the murder of whites by blacks. Only one copy of this work has been at auction in the last twenty-five years, and that was in our 2010 Sale. Sabin 52275. Not in Afro-Americana or the Blockson Collection; the Schomburg copy on microfiche.