First Edition of Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a Northern Slave and Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s The Woman’s Bible Lead Swann’s Focus On Women Sale

Focus On Women is an upcoming sale from Swann Auction Galleries. Among the highlights is Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a Northern Slave, a book by Sojourner Truth printed for the author in 1850 by J. B. Yerriton and Son. Born into slavery, Sojourner Truth escaped captivity with her infant daughter to become an American abolitionist and a women’s rights activist. She was the first Black woman to win a case against a white man in 1828 after going to court to recover her son. The available book by Truth is a first edition, edited by Olive Gilbert with the author’s portrait frontispiece, bound in the publisher’s original green cloth. 

“We much read the Bible as we do all other books, that have emanated from the brain of man, with no special divine authority; The Bible degrades Woman from Genesis to Revelation & yet women believe it was written by the fingers of God,” wrote Elizabeth Cady Stanton in The Woman’s Bible. A signed and inscribed copy of The Woman’s Bible by Elizabeth Cady Stanton is a notable lot in this auction. This book was published in 1898 by the European Publishing Company. The first part is signed with a 12-line inscription in Stanton’s handwriting. The Woman’s Bible is a collection of essays and commentaries on the Bible compiled in 1895 by a committee chaired by Stanton, one of the organizers of the Seneca Falls Convention (the first Woman’s Rights Convention held in 1848) and a founder of the National Woman Suffrage Association. Find the complete catalog and register to bid by visiting Swann Auction Galleries.