Trial and Imprisonment of Jonathan Walker, at Pensacola, Florida, for Aiding Slaves to Escape from Bondage. With an Appendix, Containing a Sketch of His Life.
Boston: Published at the Anti-Slavery Office, 1846. Second edition, expanded from the 119-page 1845 first edition. 12mo (7.25 x 4.5 inches), original blind-stamped brown cloth stamped in gilt, "The Branded Hand" (professionally rebacked with the original spine laid down), 126 pages. Frontis portrait, illus., title page vignette. Vignette illustration colored in at a fairly early date. Traces of acidic tape transfer to the rear endpapers, presumably from a since-disappeared added jacket; and some general moderate foxing and light staining; still, in very good condition. Item #22404
Walker had attempted to conduct escaping enslaved men from Florida to the British West Indies in an open boat, but was instead arrested, jailed, pilloried and branded on the palm by a U. S. Marshal with S.S. (for "Slave Stealer"). Walker's case became a celebrated cause in the abolition movement, and this popular account did much to draw attention to the anti-slavery movement. (One wonders too whether the compact format made it suitable for sale at his lectures around the North; the gilt titling to the upper board of the first edition had the somewhat less striking reading of "Narrative of Jonathan Walker.") With a new afterword from Walker and a poem from Whittier not present in the 1845 imprint. Lib. Co. Afro-Americana 10895; BAL 21750 (Whittier). An ex-library copy, with the mounted bookplate for the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore and another small label on the front pastedown (but no other evident library marks).
Price: $450.00