Page 89 - Swann Galleries - Printed & Manuscript African Americana- Sale 2308 - March 21, 2013

136 ● (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION—SLAVE NARRATIVES.) BROWN,
WILLIAM J. The Life of William J. Brown of Providence, R.I., With Personal
Recollections of Incidents in Rhode Island. 230 pages. 8vo, original finely ribbed
black cloth lettered in gilt on the upper cover; very slight rubbing to the extremities. A
superior copy. Providence:Angell & Co, 1883 [1,500/2,500]
FIRST EDITION OF A SCARCE NARRATIVE. William J. Brown (1814-1885) provides a rich
description of what the life of a Negro in Rhode Island was like in the early portion of the
19th century.At the time of this writing, Brown, a shoemaker and Baptist minister, had lost his
sight and was nearly paralyzed, probably from arthritis.There is a lot of Rhode Island history
in his narrative, beginning with an account of his grandfather, an African slave, brought to
Rhode Island by the noted Quaker Moses Brown, before he turned against slavery. Brignano,
number 35.
137 ● (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION—SLAVE NARRATIVES.) HEARD, BISHOP
WILLIAM H. From Slavery to the Bishopric. Illustrated. 89 pages. Small 8vo, original
printed stiff wrappers. Np, 1937 [400/600]
SECOND EDITION. Bishop Heard was born a slave in Georgia in 1850. He passed away the
year this edition of his narrative was published. Uncommon. OCLC locates 3 copies only.
Blockson Collection,Arno reprint, 1974.
138 ● (SLAVERY AND ABOLI-
TION—SLAVE NARRATIVES.)
Experience and Personal Narrative
of Uncle Tom Jones, who was for
Forty Years a Slave; also the
Surprising Adventures of Wild
Tom, of the Island Retreat, a
Fugitive Negro from South
Carolina. Engraved frontispiece; 54
pages. 8vo, original engraved blue
wrappers with the portrait of Jones
on the upper cover and advertise-
ments for the publisher on the rear
cover; wrappers detached with some
edge-wear; stain running through the
frontispiece and title-page.
Boston, [1855] [500/750]
FIRST EDITION OF A SCARCE SENSA-
TIONAL PRINTING OF TWO DIFFERENT
PIECES. The first 28 pages are a straight-
forward and authentic narrative; the
second is entirely fictional and extracted
from Richard Hildreth’s “The Slave, or
Archie Moore,” published in Boston, in
1836. It is interesting that the present
publisher chose to use a portion of “Archie
Moore,” which was first published anony-
mously and for many years was thought
to be an authentic narrative. Not in Afro-Americana; Blockson, 9405; Sabin, 36611 mistakenly cites
this as a variant printing of “The Experience of Thomas Jones who was a Slave for Forty Years
(Boston, 1850).