De la Littérature des Nègres, ou recherches sur leurs facultés intellectuelles, leurs qualités morales et leur littérature; suivi de Notices sur la vie et les ouvrages des nègres qui se sont distingués dans les Sciences, les Lettres et les Arts.
Paris: Chez Maradan, Libraire, 1808.
Price: $5,000.00
About the item
First edition. xvi, 287, [1, errata] pp., de l'Imprimerie des Sourd-Muets, sous la direction d'Ange Clo. 8vo. Contemporary marbled boards with citron morocco spine label. Rubbing to spine and joints, occasional spotting, early ownership inscription on recto of front free endpaper ("Fr. Barberino") and later inscription on verso. Sabin 28727; Blockson 101, no. 18 & Weinstein, Against the Tide, no. 36 (for 1810 American edition); Robinson 1808.A1.
Item #314384
First edition of the first history of black literature. Grégoire (1750-1831) was an abolitionist and a former Bishop of Blois. His De la Littérature des Nègres (Paris, 1808) was aimed at the seemingly false sympathy of Thomas Jefferson as expressed in his Notes on Virginia. Grégoire dedicated his work "à tous les hommes courageux qui ont plaidé la cause des malheureux Noirs et Sang-mêlés." It includes biographical portraits of fifteen blacks, including Jamaican poet Francis Williams, Olaudah Equiano, Ignatius Sancho, and Phillis Wheatley (pp. 260-272, with three of her poems printed in English with French prose translations).
Of the English translation, published in Brooklyn in 1810, Blockson wrote, “This now scarce volume set the standards by which most biographical and historical works on gifted blacks were written during the following decades.”
An attractive copy in contemporary binding.
