[Rarebooks] fa: 1743 MEMOIRS OF AN UNFORTUNATE YOUNG NOBLEMAN - 13 Years' Slavery in America

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, February 22. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/qgkqdqn

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

Memoirs of an Unfortunate Young Nobleman, Return’d from a Thirteen Years Slavery in America, Where he had been sent by the Wicked Contrivances of his Cruel Uncle. A Story founded on Truth, and address’d equally to the Head and Heart. London: Printed for J. Freeman in Fleetstreet; and sold by the Booksellers in Town and Country, MDCCXLIII [1743]. FIRST EDITION. Tall 12mo in later but not recent full polished calf; [4] + 277 + [7] pp.; with the half-title and publisher's adverts; woodcut borders, initials, head- and tail-pieces. ESTC T81624; Sabin 1599; Howes A-281.

A semi-fictionalized account of the travails of James Annesley, claimant to the earldom of Anglesey, one of the richest estates in Ireland, who maintained that he was kidnapped at the age of twelve by his uncle  Richard, another claimant to the title, and shipped to a plantation in Delaware, where he endured twelve years of indentured servitude before escaping and eventually making his way back to England in 1741 and laying claim to his title. The result was "Annesley v. Anglesea," one of the most famous criminal proceedings of the 18th century, a trial followed avidly by the English newspaper-reading public. The verdict ultimately went in James's favor, but he died before he could obtain his title. Authorship of this account, published before the trial, has been variously ascribed to the novelist Eliza Haywood and to Annesley himself. A sequel was published later the same year and a third part in 1747. Annesley's story is believed to have inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped and certainly influenced Smollett's Peregrine Pickle. Laurence Sterne owned a copy of the Memoirs and it was among the books sold in the auction of his library on 25 August, 1768 (lot 1664).

Binding with modest bumping/wear to the corners, some drying and darkening to the spine, joints and spine ends professionally repaired; early owner's signature and ink blots to the title-page, dust-soiling to the edges of the text block, mild toning to the contents with occasional spots and soiling.