Voices of the Night.
LONGFELLOW, Henry Wadsworth
Cambridge [Massachussetts]: John Owen. 1839.
Description:
First edition. Small 8vo. 178x110mm. pp. xv [ibl], 144. Original drab boards, paper label to spine. Head and foot of spine a little chipped and bumped and some rubbing to edges of boards. Internally very good although the first gathering is slightly loose and there is some toning to the edges. Housed in a folding card jacket and a blue quarter morocco slipcase, lettered in gilt to the spine. Title page has ownership inscription: "Chas. L. Reason".
Reason was an African American mathematician. A child prodigy, he began teaching the subject when he was fourteen, becoming the first black college professor in America. He was also a committed anti-slavery campaigner, fighting against the law allowing slave owners from other states to bring their slaves to New York. He also founded the Society for the Promotion of Education among Colored Children and worked tirelessly to end segregation. Cultured and learned, Reason was a great collector of books
Voices of the Night is Longfellow's first collection of poetry. In it, we note an early interest in the Native American experience ("burial of the Minnisink") and an overarching gentleness to which Reason no doubt responded. And he would certainly have approved of the 1842 collection Poems on Slavery, individual poems from which were distributed as anti-slavery tracts. We don't know whether Reason and Longfellow knew each other but, given their shared humanity, intelligence and campaigning interests, it seems highly likely.
Description:
First edition. Small 8vo. 178x110mm. pp. xv [ibl], 144. Original drab boards, paper label to spine. Head and foot of spine a little chipped and bumped and some rubbing to edges of boards. Internally very good although the first gathering is slightly loose and there is some toning to the edges. Housed in a folding card jacket and a blue quarter morocco slipcase, lettered in gilt to the spine. Title page has ownership inscription: "Chas. L. Reason".
Reason was an African American mathematician. A child prodigy, he began teaching the subject when he was fourteen, becoming the first black college professor in America. He was also a committed anti-slavery campaigner, fighting against the law allowing slave owners from other states to bring their slaves to New York. He also founded the Society for the Promotion of Education among Colored Children and worked tirelessly to end segregation. Cultured and learned, Reason was a great collector of books
Voices of the Night is Longfellow's first collection of poetry. In it, we note an early interest in the Native American experience ("burial of the Minnisink") and an overarching gentleness to which Reason no doubt responded. And he would certainly have approved of the 1842 collection Poems on Slavery, individual poems from which were distributed as anti-slavery tracts. We don't know whether Reason and Longfellow knew each other but, given their shared humanity, intelligence and campaigning interests, it seems highly likely.