(Philadelphia): Printed for the Author by J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1877.
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Hardcover. First edition. Small octavo. 274pp. Engraved frontispiece portrait of the author. Publisher's beveled brown cloth gilt, with brown glazed endpapers. Contemporary penciled signature indicating this was bought from Lippincott's book store, slight chipping at edge of rear fly, light rubbing or loss at the spine ends, overall very good. Self-published autobiography by a Black New Jersey doctor, who was born free to formerly enslaved parents in 1812. Still became a successful business man in Burlington, N.J. in a number of fields, including growing medicinal herbs and eventually taught himself from books how to become a doctor. James Still's brother, William Still, collaborated with Sojourner Truth and became a very important Philadelphia-based conductor on the Underground Railroad and in 1872 wrote the definitive in-person account on the subject *The Underground Rail Road*. While this title was reprinted by at least four different publishers in the 1970s, the first edition, self-published in a presumably very small number of copies, is rare.
Item #458905
