1864 APOCALYPTIC VISIONS. Vision in Verse. American, Abolitionism, and Eschaton. Signed.

Very rare work in the Millennialist vein, demonstrating the march of time from Creation up through the periodization of sacred history, culminating with American history, the freedom of the slaves [notably, issued shortly after the Emancipation Proclamation].

The author writes in a way that exhibits the world's sovereign march through time as occurring in distinct epochs or dispensations and sees the modern era as "the last days" before the Millennium and the present moment in America as a signal part of that story. 

Exceptionally scarce with no copies in the trade and not a solitary example in the auction record. 

Born in 1824 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the author, R. F. Fuller, grew up in a highly educated and politically active family, with his sister Margaret Fuller becoming a renowned social activist and writer and one of his brother's an abolitionist chaplain during the Civil War. 

Practicing law in Boston, with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, Fuller and other Bostonians called for a public meeting at Faneuil Hall to plan their response. At this meeting, participants formed the third and final Boston Vigilance Committee to assist freedom seekers escaping slavery on the Underground Railroad. Fuller joined this committee and his name and address appeared on the official broadside that listed members. His specific contributions to the committee, or the larger Underground Railroad network, however, remain unknown.

Fuller also dedicated himself to other reform movements as well as literary pursuits. He participated in the temperance movement. He wrote a biography of his brother Chaplin Arthur B. Fuller who served in the Civil War and lost his life at the Battle of Fredricksburg. He also wrote and published Visions in Verse, a book of poetry, as here. 

At a July 4th event in the town of Wayland in 1865, Fuller read one of his anti-slavery poems which included the lines:

Shall anti-Christian caste be suffered to remain
And with a dark blot still our banner stain?
Shall we disfranchise color, giving the control
To white-faced hypocrites of blacker soul;

. . . 

Till ‘Freedom’s Flag’ in every country wave,-
No King but Jesus, and no man a slave!

The present copy is inscribed by Fuller to fellow abolitionist Harriet Minot Pitman [1815-1888]. A radical abolitionist, friend of John Greenleaf Whittier, and vocal supporter of inter-racial marriage at a time when many of the most ardent anti-slavery persons were opposed. She was also a peace activist and advocate for women's suffrage. Inscribed to her "from her friends, Mr. & Mrs. R. F. Fuller."

Fuller, Richard Frederick. Visions in Verse; or, Dreams of Creation and Redemption. Boston. Lee & Shepard. 1864. 

A very good copy in cloth; a bit dulled generally as shown.