1839 THOMAS CLARKSON. History of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade. Rare Illustrated Edition.

A foundational work on the history of the abolitionist cause by Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846). Clarkson was one of the leading campaigners against slavery and the African slave trade. With Granville Sharp, he founded the Committee for the Abolition of the African Slave Trade in 1787, which was the main campaigning body behind the eventual legislative victory.

The book itself is the definitive firsthand chronicle of the abolitionist movement in Britain. It describes the Quaker influence in the abolitionist movement and the parliamentary debates leading to the Slave Trade Act of 1807, laying out both the arguments in support of and in opposition to abolition, as well as the actions of the key figures involved, with special attention given to William Wilberforce, Hannah More, etc. Because Clarkson was himself a central participant in the events he describes, the work is simultaneously history and memoir, sort of an insider's account of one of the great moral campaigns in Western political history.

The 1839 Parker edition is notable because it appeared six years after full emancipation was formally passed in England and includes prefatory remarks on the subsequent abolition of slavery. With revisions from the earlier edition, this imprint contextualizes the original narrative within the larger arc of the British antislavery movement's ultimate success. An American edition was also produced at the same time specifically so the work could "be more generally diffused among the people of the United States," where slavery would not be abolished for another quarter century.

The only copy to sell  at auction in the last 20 years was conditionally very similar to the present. It fetched $1,440.00. And the market for quality material related to the abolitionism has increased substantially since. 

[Slavery, William Wilberforce, Abolition] History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament. A New Edition, with Prefatory Remarks on the Subsequent Abolition of Slavery. London. John W. Parker. 1839. 615pp.

Good -, cloth shipped and rubbed with losses to spine as shown. Tender between signatures, textually very good with only slightest handling and foxing. Folding plates present, very often pilfered.