HILDRETH, RICHARD. The Slave: Or, Memoirs of Archy Moore. Boston: John H. Eastburn, 1836. First edition. Two volumes. Original cloth backed boards with paper spine labels. 7 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches (19 x 11.5 cm); [4], 170; 163 pp. The spines with small losses to cloth and labels, other small stains and rubbing to boards, the rear joint of volume II strengthened and somewhat tight, small modern bookseller label to rear pastedown, ink signatures of Wm. H. Johnson to titles, penciled signatures of J. Simpson to front blanks, an unsophisticated copy in largely original condition.

This is the very rare first edition of the first major anti-slavery novel written in the United States. Written as a memoir of Archy Moore, the enslaved son of a white landowner and an African female slave, the story tells of Archy's marriage to another light-skinned slave and his subsequent escape from slavery to become a British sailor who fights against America. Taken as a true slave narrative, the book ran to seven editions before 1848. While not mentioned in her Key, it is thought that Harriet Beecher Stowe based several characters on those in The Slave. Following the success of Stowe's book, the true author Richard Hildreth reissued the book under the more provocative title The White Slave; or, Memoirs of a Fugitive. Sabin 31790.