Narrative of Sojourner Truth.; and "Sojourner Truth, The Libyan Soul."
“Ain’t I A Woman?”
A Handsome Copy Of Truth’s
Classic Anti-Slavery Narrative,
Together With A Scarce Magazine Profile By Stowe
Truth, Sojourner. Narrative of Sojourner Truth, A Northern Slave, Emancipated From Bodily Servitude By The State of New York, in 1828. With a Portrait. New York: Published for the Author, 1853.
8vo.; portrait frontispiece of Truth; printed buff wrappers, sewn; front wrapper lightly, evenly, used, some chipping to edges and spine, small (1/2” diameter) darkened spot towards bottom edge; rear wrapper lacking; internally fine, pages crisp and bright.
Together with:
(Truth, Sojourner). Stowe, Harriet Beecher. “Sojourner Truth, the Libyan Sibyl.” In The Atlantic Monthly. A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics. Volume XI, No. LXVI. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, April 1863.
8vo.; printed buff wrappers, stitched; front cover stained and partially detached. Both items housed together in a specially made cloth folding box.
Second edition of one of the most enduring anti-slavery works ever written by a woman, together with the first appearance of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s influential biographical portrait of Truth. Truth’s autobiographical account of her captivity, resistance, and eventual freedom was astoundingly popular in its time; today, it remains a canonical text, serving as required reading for schoolchildren, students of U.S. history, and scholars of women’s and Afro-American studies alike. This edition of Truth’s heroic literal and spiritual journey followed the rare first edition by three years (1850); it includes an unsigned preface by William Lloyd Garrison and a lengthy appendix by William Weld; the rear wrapper prints testimonials from numerous politicians and other public figures, attesting to Truth’s strong moral character.
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s well-intentioned but patronizing article about Truth—which, to Truth’s horror, rendered her quotations in a quasi-incoherent dialectic gibberish—was directed squarely at the Atlantic Monthly’s white and affluent readership. Still, the article introduced Truth to a larger audience and survives as a memorable, if imperfect, instance of early feminist biographical tribute. For the Narrative: Blockson, #29, 101 Influential Books (citing the first edition, but illustrated with a photo of the second); Work, 476 (who proclaims it “an extraordinary contribution to anti-slavery literature”); for Stowe’s article: Hildreth, p. 128; Carleton Mabee, (Sojourner Truth, New York: New York University Press, 1993, pp. 68-69, 112, 114, 261).
Sojourner Truth—abolitionist, author, lecturer, and women’s rights activist—was born in Ulster County, New York in 1797. Born into a family of slaves, Truth, née Isabella, lived with her mother Elizabeth and brothers and sisters in the crowded slave-quarters of the damp cellar beneath her owner’s upstate New York house until she was nine, at which time she was sold for $100 to a storekeeper who maltreated her. In 1810 she was sold to a wealthy landowner named John J. Dumont. Truth lived with Dumont at his New Paltz, New York estate for the next decade and was the mother of several of his children.
In July 1817 Truth’s legal status changed radically, at least on paper, with the New York State adoption of a provision emancipating all slaves over forty and guaranteeing the rest their freedom by 1828. Although Dumont promised to abide by the law and free Truth accordingly, he reneged on his pledge. In 1827, infuriated, Truth fled from captivity, and was taken in by a sympathetic white couple, Isaac and Maria Van Wagener. The Van Wageners purchased Truth for $20, and in return Truth agreed to work as their live-in servant and to adopt their surname. (It wasn’t until 1843, in response to a “born-again” religious experience, that she adopted Sojourner Truth.)
Truth first gained local notoriety in 1828, when (with the assistance of abolitionist Quakers) she sued for the freedom of her son Peter,
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