Narrative of Sojourner Truth - photo 1
Narrative of Sojourner Truth - photo 2

Narrative of Sojourner Truth

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$ 10 710
Auction dateClassic
19.10.2023 10:00UTC -04:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
USA, New York
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ID 1032990
Lot 331 | Narrative of Sojourner Truth
Sojourner TRUTH (1797-1883, born Isabella). Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a Northern Slave, emancipated from Bodily Servitude by the State of New York, in 1828. [As narrated to Olive Gilbert.] Boston: Printed for the author [by J.B. Yerrinton and Son], 1850.

"Yes, reader, if any one feels that the tocsin of alarm, or the anti-slavery trump, must sound a louder note before they can hear it, one would think they must be very hard of hearing,–yea, that they belong to that class, of whom it may truly be said, 'they have stopped their ears that they may not hear.'" (p.124).

First edition, in original wrappers, a very rare work. At the time of publication, Sojourner Truth was already a prominent abolitionist preacher, she had delivered her first such speech in 1844 shortly after re-christening herself as Sojourner Truth. Though herself illiterate, she was inspired by the success of Frederick Douglass's Narrative to publish her own. She narrated her story to Olive Gilbert, a neighbor in the utopian and abolitionist Northampton Association. The narrative is mostly in the third person, but it is clear that Sojourner Truth herself and others at the time considered her and her alone as the author and Gilbert's role as more the amanuensis and editor. Sojourner Truth was also hew own chief distributor and marketer and convinced the printer, J.B. Yerrinton, to take the job on credit on her behalf. According to the records of RBH, only one other copy of this work in wrappers has appeared at auction in over 100 years. Howes G-163 (erroneously ascribing authorship to Gilbert, as common). See Painter, Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol. New York, 1996.

Octavo (180 x 112mm). Wood-engraved frontispiece portrait. (Dog-eared, some minor soiling.) Original printed yellow wrappers (soiled and tattered, lower 1 1/2 inch of upper wrapper excised with loss of imprint, about half of backstrip lacking). Provenance: A Midwestern estate.
Artist:Sojourner Truth (1797 - 1883)
Place of origin:USA
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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