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Brown, Mary A.
Description
Condition
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.
Catalogue Note
Arranging for the publication of John Brown's letters, helping to assure that his cause would go marching on.
John Brown's widow writes to one her husband's most significant prison correspondents:
"Your welcome letter of Dec. 8th came to hand but as we only get one mail a week I could not answer it sooner. Please accept my gratitude for your sympathy in our deep affliction. I well remember hearing my dear husband talk of you years ago. I would return my sympathy in your affliction. We do not need much of this worlds goods Contentment with Godliness is great gain. God has not forgotten us & Oh may we not forget him in our prosperity. Your most excellent letter I have sent to Boston to be published in my husbands life to be written by Mr. Redpath. It was read by many with great interest & I prize it highly. I dont think my dear husband received but one from you. I received all his prison letters that he had when I was with him. You can get the letter by writing to James Redpath Malden Mass. If you get it please ask him to take a coppy of it & you send it to me. I was anxious to have it published in his life."
Herman Vaill's letter to John Brown was not significant because he was a celebrated person himself (he was not), but because it elicited in response one of the most widely disseminated of Brown's own letters written from prison (see previous lot). The opening line of Vaill's letter to Mrs. Brown, which brought the present answer, acknowledges as much: "It is not unlikely that you may have heard my name in connection with the excellent letter recd. by me from your husband a short time before he was translated. I trust it was well that I consented to have that letter go before the world, as it did, this the daily & weekly papers; for thus it has been read by thousands—whose respect for the character,—the firmness,—the Christian heroism of your noble husband has been more than ever expressed." Vaill further explained that Brown's answer to him had raised curiosity about his own letter to that martyr to the cause of freedom. He had written again to Brown asking if it might be returned so that he could make a copy, but having failed to hear back, he forwarded the same request to Mrs. Brown, who in turn referred him to James Redpath.
Redpath, an immigrant from Scotland, was one of the foremost journalists of the antislavery movement. Redpath spent time in Kansas, where he co-founded the Free-Soil newspaper The Crusader of Freedom. He played a major role in promoting John Brown and the cause of radical abolition and was the family's choice to write the official biography after Brown's execution. (Mrs. Brown's letter is accompanied by a photographic copy of Vaill's letter to her and by two original letters from Redpath to Vaill, 7 January and 5 February 1860.)