"THE JEREMIAH OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT": PRESENTATION FIRST EDITION OF RADICAL ABOLITIONIST PARKER PILLSBURY'S ACTS OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY APOSTLES, 1883, IN ORIGINAL CLOTH

PILLSBURY, Parker. Acts of the Anti-Slavery Apostles. Concord, N.H.: (Clague, Wegman, Schlicht), 1883. Octavo, original gilt-lettered brown cloth, floral endpapers; pp. 503. $1500.

First edition of the fearless abolitionist's memoir, a distinctive presentation copy inscribed by Pillsbury to "To Mr. & Mrs. F. M. C— With sincere regards and best wishes of their friend Parker Pillsbury. Concord, New Hampshire 1894." Hailed as a "fighting book," it documents the bold tactics of this notorious radical who early warned America was "hastening to… a baptism of blood" and was praised by Emerson as a "tough oak stock of a man not to be silenced or insulted or intimidated," a splendid copy in original cloth.

Born in Massachusetts in 1809, the son of a blacksmith, Pillsbury became a Congregational minister, but was soon famed as one of the era's most radical abolitionists. Having once witnessed a slave auction, he recorded its advertisement of: "'two mules, a horse and… 27 Negroes'… Does any mortal man, or woman," he asked, "comprehend all the tremendous meaning of those words?" Infamous for his apocalyptic style and confrontational tactics, Pillsbury early declared the nation was "hastening to its baptism. It is a baptism of blood." He was resolute in denying any possible "union with slave-holders,"and also insisted "women must be given their due rights." Emerson admired him as a "tough oak stock of a man not to be silenced or insulted or intimidated by a mob, because he is more mob than they. He mobs the mob." He was, "in Susan B. Anthony's eyes, the Jeremiah of the anti-slavery movement" (Filler, Parker Pillsbury, 315, 328-37).

Fiercely anticlerical in his writings and in action, Pillsbury would dramatically interrupt "religious services… calling on audiences to 'come out' from their proslavery churches." He linked most clergy to timid politicians and cautious abolitionists, proclaiming them a "brotherhood of thieves" (Robertson, Hard, Cold, Stern Life, 189). Pillsbury's 1883 memoir, Acts of the Anti-Slavery Apostles, was, above all, "a fighting book." In it he writes of his esteem for his fellow white radical Stephen S. Foster and leading Black abolitionists such as David Ruggles, as well as his disdain for Lincoln; Pillsbury "never forgot that the idolized Lincoln meant to save the Union, and not necessarily to free the slaves" (Filler, 336). First edition, first printing: issued in brown cloth (this copy) and in green cloth, no priority determined. Blockson 9099. See Work, 304 (1884 edition). This copy is inscribed to "To Mr. & Mrs. F. M. Crosby." It is notable that while there was a Crosby family of abolitionists in New Hampshire, the identity of this copy's recipients could not be confirmed.

Text pristine; tiniest bit of soiling to cloth. An especially handsome copy in fine condition.