The Library of Stephen J. Farber

2 volumes, 4to (256 x 203 mm). 2 engraved vignette titles, 2 folding maps, 79 engraved plates (including several folding) by William Blake (thirteen signed and three attributed), Bartolozzi and others. (Marginal toning and spotting throughout, offsetting from plates to text.) Contemporary half calf, marbled boards (rebacked, preserving original spines, endpapers renewed).

SECOND EDITION of Captain John Gabriel Stedman’s important eyewitness account of slavery and insurrection in Dutch Guiana. An officer in the Scots Brigade in Holland, Stedman volunteered for service in Suriname, where he kept a detailed journal between 1773 and 1777 that forms the basis of the present work. His narrative records not only the brutal realities of plantation slavery and its violent suppression but also offers extensive observations on the region’s flora, fauna, natural history, and the lives of its Indigenous communities.

The work is further distinguished by its engraved plates after Stedman’s own designs, including a number executed by a young William Blake. Introduced to Stedman through the publisher Joseph Johnson, Blake produced a series of engravings for the publication, of which sixteen were ultimately issued. These images—among the most powerful visual indictments of slavery of the period—helped shape the book’s reception. Though Stedman himself was not an avowed abolitionist, his vivid account provoked considerable public response and became an influential text within late 18th-century abolitionist discourse, while also contributing to Blake’s own evolving views on slavery. Abbey, Travel 719; Bentley 499; Sabin 91075.