Between the Covers

Hardcover. First edition. Octavo. 263pp. Frontispiece and two additional plates. Gray cloth gilt. A bit of fraying at the spine ends and corners, heavy foxing in the text, else a nice, about very good copy. The scarce true first edition, followed by a more common expanded edition in 1854. A collection of anti-slavery essays and contributions written in response to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society's solicitation for this compilation. Each contribution features the author's signature in facsimile. Among the contributors are Harriet Beecher Stowe, Dr. James McCune Smith, Horace Greeley, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Steward, Horace Mann, Lewis Tappan, Charles Sumner, Gerit Smith, and Annie Parker. However, perhaps the most important contribution, and by far the longest (nearly 70 pages) is the first appearance of Frederick Douglass's previously unpublished novella *The Heroic Slave,* his only attempt at fiction, and heavily influenced by the revolt lead by Madison Washington on the slave ship *Creole.* Very uncommon.

Item #443915