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Garrison, William Lloyd, editor & publisher.

The Liberator. [A Collection of 192 Original Issues, 1845–1862].

Boston: Wm. Lloyd Garrison & Isaac Knapp, Publishers; J. Brown Yerrinton, Printer, 1845–1862. 192 original tabloid weekly issues (bifolium, 25” x 19”) printed on rag paper; unbound as originally issued, unfolded, laid into three oversized archival clamshell boxes. Three issues have articles excised; a dozen or so with more-than-average wear, including tears, splits, and/or heavy toning; all with original horizontal fold-lines at center, likely as issued. All others complete, most in clean, Very Good condition with the paper clean and supple. Most issues bear the name in holograph of subscriber Sydney Howard Gay, a noted New York abolitionist and editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard. Others issues are marked for “W.B. Spooner” (William B. Spooner, a prominent temperance figure in Boston), and “A.S. Standard” (presumably the National Antislavery Standard). Contents as follows: Volume 15 (1845), 2 issues: nos. 24, 25 (Jun 13, 20) Volume 17 (1847), 26 issues: nos. 19–22; 30–42; 44–53 Volume 18 (1848), 49 issues: nos. 1–10; 13–20; 22–52 Volume 19 (1849), 34 issues: nos. 10, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18; 20–28; 30; 32–51 Volume 20 (1850), 34 issues: nos. 7–26; 35; 37–41; 43–46; 48–51 Volume 21 (1851), 43 issues: nos. 1–3; 5–12; 17–35; 39–45; 47 52 (also nearly complete) Volume 25 (1855), 1 issue: no. 23 Volume 30 (1860), 2 issues: nos. 47, 50 Volume 32 (1862), 1 issue: no. 10 Also laid in are eight partial or badly damaged issues not reckoned in the above inventory.

An excellent, extensive run of Garrison’s fiery abolitionist newspaper, one of the most radical American periodicals of its time and certainly the most radical of any with a national circulation.

Throughout its thirty-five years of publication, The Liberator championed not only the abolition of slavery and equal rights for African-American citizens, but also women’s suffrage, mental health and prison reform, education reform, freethought, and a litany of other progressive causes, many in an era when such notions were sufficiently far out of the mainstream that they were considered not just contrarian, but simply beyond the pale of serious discourse. By providing space in his pages for such radical voices as Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, Henry C. Wright, Susan B. Anthony and others beginning as early as the 1830s, Garrison and The Liberator paved the way for the Progressive movements of the later decades of the nineteenth century, precursors without which the sweeping social reform movements of the twentieth century would never have existed.

The Liberator was an epoch-making newspaper, and its influence was broad and long-lasting. The current run of issues is the largest we have ever handled, providing a substantial picture of the paper’s outlook in the years around the Mexican War, the Gold Rush, and the consequential Presidential elections of 1848, all of which are discussed at length (and from a refreshingly idiosyncratic editorial point of view) in these pages. Included are numerous significant contributions by both Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown, including the first appearance of Douglass’s famous “To My Old Master,” in which he addressed his former enslaver Thomas Auld on the tenth anniversary of his emancipation: “I intend to make use of you as a weapon with which to assail the system of slavery—as a means of concentrating public attention on the system, and deepening their horror of trafficking in the souls and bodies of men. I shall make use of you as a means of exposing the character of the American church and clergy—and as a means of bringing this guilty nation with yourself to repentance.” And, in the June 20, 1851 issue, a brief prospectus for what would become another history-making publication, Frederick Douglass’ Paper, edited by Douglass himself, which appeared in Rochester that same month and ran through 1860.

William Wells Brown, a regular contributor, maintained a lively correspondence with fellow abolitionists in the pages of The Liberator; the current run includes his lengthy missives to Samuel May, Edmund Quincy, Wendell Phillips, Frederick Douglass, and others. The American proto-anarchist and freethinker Henry C. Wright contributes many articles in 1848 on the Free Church controversy and on church reform more generally. The issue for December 14, 1860 prints (with extensive editorial criticisms) a substantial portion of outgoing President James Buchanan’s Message to Congress (his State of the Union address), in which he defended the sovereignty of the Southern states,

affirmed the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Act, and warned that “disunion will become inevitable” if the northern states refused to enforce it. Other regular contributors of note include Samuel May, David Ruggles (advertising his Northampton sanatorium), Theodore Parker, Parker Pilsbury, George Thompson, Cassius Clay and many others.

Highly important as an exemplar of the first great phase of organized radicalism in America, and extremely uncommon in a grouping of this size, especially in an unbound state (we note only two comparable collections in commerce in the past quarter-century, both bound collections of ca. 200 issues, one offered by Bonham’s in 2023, another by Sotheby’s in 2021). This collection unbound, with significant provenance and covering some of the most critical years of the abolitionist movement.

Item #9059

On Hold

Price: $20,000.00

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