A Harvest of Books and Manuscripts From Freeman’s This Fall

The first of 11 pamphlets attributed to Puritan missionary John Eliot, known as the “Eliot Tract” or New England’s First Fruits, describes early Puritan efforts to convert Indigenous North American tribes to Christianity. Settlers had only been in the region for 20 years, and the pamphlet was written in response to criticism from England regarding their evangelizing. Notably, the tract contains the first printed account of the founding of Harvard College. A rare issue of this tract is available in the Books and Manuscripts auction, offered by Freeman’s.

The auction also includes a pair of lots relating to the American civil rights movement: a signed letter by Martin Luther King Jr. replying to Alban Wall of Pennsylvania, who had sent him a letter and poem; and a rare comic book retelling of the Montgomery Bus Boycott signed by both Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King. Further items include an edition of the Declaration of Independence printed for the 50^th anniversary of its signing, a “Suppressed Boston Edition” of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, a Pop Art advertisement poster for the American Airlines 747 Astroliner, and more. View any of these lots and register to bid on Freeman’s.