The Library of Stephen J. Farber

8vo (203 x 127 mm). Large folding plate, folding map. (Light marginal dampstaining in upper gutter to several leaves.) Contemporary speckled calf (neatly rebacked to style).

FIRST EDITION. Between 1790 and 1791, the British House of Commons convened a Select Committee to hear extensive testimony regarding the Atlantic slave trade as part of the growing parliamentary debate over its abolition. Witnesses—including sailors, ship surgeons, merchants, and others directly involved in the trade—were called to give first-hand accounts of the capture of Africans, the conditions aboard slave ships during the Middle Passage, and the mortality and violence inherent in the system. These hearings formed part of a broader investigation championed by leading abolitionists such as William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, and the evidence presented played a significant role in shaping public opinion in Britain during the decades-long campaign that ultimately culminated in the abolition of the British slave trade in 1807.

With the rare folding plate depicting the terrible conditions of the slave ship Brooks, a variant of the iconic image which first appeared in a British pamphlet in 1789. Afro-Americana 34; Sabin 81745.