Printed and Manuscript Americana

London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1861. First edition. 12mo. xiv, 453 pp. Title-page printed in red and in black. Illustrated with mounted albumen frontispiece portrait of Brown, with facsimile script below. Publisher's brown cloth, decorated in blind, spine lettered in gilt, light wear to corners, small chip at head of spine; all edges trimmed; front and rear hinges starting; ownership inscription of Edward Le Grand Adams (1851-1928), U.S. Consul at Dublin, on front free endpaper and on title-page; top of title-page excised, but not affecting text; scattered light soiling to text; bookbinder's ticket at bottom of rear paste-down (John Mowat, Dublin). Blockson 9644; Library Company of Philadelphia, Afro-Americana 10999

A handsome copy of this scarce first edition of one of the first biographies on abolitionist John Brown. Published in the first year of the Civil War, it was edited by Richard D. Webb, co-founder of the Hibernian Antislavery Association, one of the most active antislavery groups in Europe at the time.