Olaudah Equiano. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Londo...

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First Edition of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

Olaudah Equiano. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. London: [Olaudah Equiano], [1789].

First edition. Two octavo volumes in one. Octavo. 272; 255 pages.

Contemporary full leather is rubbed and worn at extremities with tender hinges. Front board almost detached. Bookplate of Otto Orren Fisher on front pastedown. Additional bookplate on verso of front free endpaper. Engraved frontispiece portrait and folded plate. Pages mildly toned and thumbed with scattered foxing. Housed in a custom chemise and slipcase. A good copy of this influential slave autobiography.

Equiano's account of his life as a slave, beginning with his childhood in Guinea, his capture and sale into slavery by his own kin, and his life in England and the West Indies before purchasing his freedom and converting to Christianity. A widely cited autobiography that also grew in importance as the abolitionist movement gained momentum. From the Professor John Ralph Willis Collection of Rare Africana.

Sabin 22714.