The Anti-Slavery Almanac for 1837. Vol. I, No. 2. Boston: Southard & D.K. Hitchcock, [1836]. 

8vo. Woodcut illustrations. Original illustrated wrappers (lacking upper half). Dumond, p. 8; LCP, Afro-Americana 302. 

An important early issue of the Anti-Slavery Almanac. Among the more quotidian agricultural prognostications, the author includes extensive abolitionist sentiments, philosophy, and anecdotes.

On page 43, a graphic woodcut shows an enslaved woman in the act of killing her two sleeping children. Titled "A Mother's Anguish," the fictionalized dialogue relates the wretched tale of an enslaved woman whose only joy in life is being reunited with her children each day. Upon discovering that they will be sold and separated from her, she chooses to give them what she deems a kinder fate, rather than suffer through the torture of enslavement and familial separation. 

Interestingly, other editions of the Almanac were printed with the same content for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, and perhaps others, but with different printers noted. It is unclear whether the contents were printed en masse and shipped, with separate wraps printed for each location, or whether multiple sets of stereotype plates were produced.

[African Americana, African American History, Black History, Slavery, Enslavement, Abolition, Emancipation] [Pamphlets, Publications, Ephemera, Books, Rare Books, Tracts]

Lacking upper portion of front wrapper, affecting illustration.