1859 Roving Editor Talks With Slaves Abolition James Redpath 1st Edition, Plates

The Roving Editor: or, Talks with Slaves in the Southern States by James Redpath, A.B. Burdock, Publisher, New York, 1859. FIRST EDITION! Frontispiece + one plate (page 144), 349 p + publisher s adverts. Original brown blind stamped cloth, 7.5 x 5 , 12mo. In fair condition. Boards scuffed at edges and worn/bumped at corners. Head and tail of spine lacking, binding exposed. Hinges cracked, binder's waste exposed. Gilt lettering on spine dulled & soiled, but legible. Pencil marginalia on front paste-down and end-page. Front gutter cracked at frontispiece, cording exposed. Regular foxing throughout text-block. Small water or tea dampness stains on top and bottom edges throughout text-block. Binding remains intact. Please see photos and ask questions, if any, before purchasing. James Redpath (1833 in Berwick upon Tweed, England 1891, in New York, New York) was an American journalist and anti-slavery activist. Beginning in March 1854, he traveled in the American South to examine slavery for himself, interviewing slaves and collecting material. It appeared early in 1859 as The Roving Editor: or, Talks with Slaves in the Southern States, dedicated to "Old Hero" Captain John Brown. The book's production costs were covered by prominent antislavery philanthropist Gerrit Smith. In 1855, Redpath moved to the Kansas-Missouri border and reported for a Free Soil newspaper, the Missouri Democrat, on the dispute over slavery in Kansas Territory. For the next three years, he was active in Kansas affairs, engaging in politics, writing dispatches, securing support in New England for Free Soil settlers, and writing poetry about Kansas. In 1856, he interviewed John Brown just days after the massacre at Pottawatomie Creek. Redpath and Brown shared the same abolitionist views, and he became Brown's most fervent publicist. In addition to his abolitionist views, he also advocated reparations for slavery. Redpath returned east from Kansas in July 1858. During the Pike's Peak Gold Rush of 1859, he and fellow journalist Richard J. Hinton prepared a guidebook for gold prospectors, Hand-Book to Kansas Territory and the Rocky Mountains' Gold Region. It was hoped that the book would spur a greater number of Free Soil immigrants to settle in Kansas Territory, which included part of what later became Colorado. FIRST EDITION! RAREA1859FNOR - 10/23 FORN-TUB-0067-BB-2502-HKREV506.