[African-American History]. Still. The Underground Railroad and Vale. Fanaticism.

Property from the Private Collection of Bailey Bishop

[AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY]

GILBERT VALE. FANATICISM; ITS SOURCE AND INFLUENCE, ILLUSTRATED BY THE SIMPLE NARRATIVE OF ISABELLA, IN THE CASE OF MATTHIAS, MR. AND MRS. B. FOLGER, MR. PIERSON, MR. MILLS, CATHERINE, ISABELLA … A REPLY TO W. L. STONE. NEW YORK: BY THE AUTHOR, 1835 — WILLIAM STILL. THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD. A RECORD OF FACTS, AUTHENTIC NARRATIVES, LETTERS, ETC., NARRATING THE HARDSHIPS HAIR-BREADTH ESCAPES AND DEATH STRUGGLES OF THE SLAVES IN THEIR EFFORTS FOR FREEDOM. PHILADELPHIA: PORTER & COATES, 1872

Vale: 2 parts (complete), the first sewn as issued and uncut, the second disbound (the largest 8 1/2 x 5 in.; 216 x 128 mm). Some browning, soiling, some light foxing. Still: large 8vo (9 1/4 x 6 1/4 in.; 235 x 158 mm). 24 steel-engraved plates. Publisher's green cloth binding, spine and upper cover lettered in gilt, brown-coated endpapers; spine ends and extremities worn. 

The earliest biography of Sojourner Truth, famed black abolitionist, reformer and women's rights activist. "One of the earliest narratives of an American black slave woman" (Blockson).

Gilbert Vale's work has only recently been recognized as an important early chapter in the life of Sojourner Truth, who was Isabella Baumfree before she changed her name. This precedes by fifteen years Sojourner Truth's autobiography, Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a Northern Slave (Boston, 1850). Rare; complete in 2 parts.

William Still, author of The Underground Rail Road, was an African American leader whose house was a stop on the Underground Railroad for "nineteen out of every twenty escaped slaves that passed through Philadelphia" (DAB).

LITERATURE:

Vale: Blockson, One Hundred and One Influential Books by and about People of African Descent, p. 28; Blockson, Afro-American Collection 8745; Sabin 98337. Still: Blockson, One Hundred and One 41; Porter, Negro in the United States 872; Work, p. 338

PROVENANCE:

Still: E. W. Porter (bookplate annotated with price and inventory number and dated February 1873)