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Estimate: $ 3,500 - $ 5,000
DOUGLASS'S ONLY PIECE OF FICTION DOUGLASS, FREDERICK. The Heroic Slave [in] Autographs for Freedom. Edited by Julia Griffiths. Frontispiece and one additional plate. 8vo, original cloth stamped in blind. A slight abrasion to the top of the spine with about 1/8th-inch loss of cloth. An exceptional copy with an early non-authorial Christmas presentation dated December, 1852. Boston, 1853
first edition. Douglass's novella "The Heroic Slave" was his contribution to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society's collection titled "Autographs for Freedom." Douglass's only attempt at fiction, it was a dramatization of the events surrounding the actual rebellion led by Madison Washington on the slave ship "Creole." On November 7, 1841, while en route from Virginia to New Orleans, the crew was overtaken by a contingent of the slaves being transported, who redirected the ship to the British free port of Nassau. Once there, the British authorities detained nineteen identified leaders of the rebellion. All remaining passengers, both crew and slave, were allowed to disembark freely. Five months later, the nineteen slaves, including Madison Washington, were set free due to lack of evidence.
