(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION SLAVE NARRATIVES) SMITH HARRY Fifty

Sale 2204 - Lot 81

Price Realized: $ 600

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

Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200

(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION--SLAVE NARRATIVES.) SMITH, HARRY. Fifty Years of Slavery in the United States of America. Engraved frontispiece and additional engravings in the text. 183 pages. 8vo, original decorative gilt-stamped cloth with the title on the upper cover; signs of small repair to the inner hinge; early bookplate on paste-down; copyright notice on a tipped-in slip preceding the title-page. Grand Rapids, 1891

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a scarce and very detailed slave narrative written by an unidentified third party who explains in his Preface that Harry Smith was unable to read or write. Smith was born in 1815 in Nelson County, Kentucky. He was a frequent runaway, and as a result was severely punished and sold many times. His narrative, rather than following strict chronology, is anecdotal in style. While at times a bit exaggerated, it is more like Mark Twain than Frederick Douglass. Harry Smith eventually made it to freedom, married and became a successful blacksmith in Grand Rapids, Michigan.