Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge
Providence, RI: Printed by B. T. Albro, 1846. 14x10cm: vii, [8]-128pp., with a frontispiece of Elleanor Eldridge. Second Edition, Later Printing. Collated and complete. Marbled paper-covered boards quarter-bound in brown cloth. Light wear to edges with exposure to corners and rubbing to boards. Spine paper title largely gone, with only a small remnant remaining. A few small tears to endpapers. Toning and scattered foxing to pages, with a small damp stain at upper corner, impacting all pages. Very Good. All contemporary editions of this title are scarce in commerce.
Uncommon second edition of Eldridge’s memoir with co-authorship commonly attributed to abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Frances Harriet Whipple Greene McDougall. The memoir is accompanied by two poems, “The Supplication of Elleanor” and “The Emancipated,” signed in text by F. H. W.
The first edition of the Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge was published in 1838. Eldridge, a Native American and free Black woman entrepreneur living in the North, was swindled out of her property and she, with the support of her local community, published her memoirs to raise money to repurchase it. The book’s Preface states, “This little book is published for the express purpose of giving a helping hand to suffering and persecuted merit… it may subserve a very important purpose, in bringing forward, and setting before the colored population, an example of industry and untiring perseverance…”
American Imprints 51391; Sabin 22102. Both for the First Edition.
Price: $750.00
Item #10603