William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879). Sonnets and Other Poems. Boston: Oliver Johnson, 1843.

12mo. Original brown cloth. FIRST EDITION. Dumond p. 57.

Provenance: David Joy (ownership inscription to half title), by descent to Mrs. Charlotte Joy Mann, to Taft Public Library, Mendon, [Ohio?] (bookplate dated June 1883 to interior frontboard, with "withdrawn" stamp). 

Lloyd addresses the reader to say that these poems are "simply the unstudied effusions of hours given to relaxation from the arduous labors arising from his connexion with the Anti-Slavery enterprise." It is evident, however, that his work infused his leisure activities as well. The very first poem is "Universal Emancipation," followed by several other explicitly abolitionist poems, including "Dedicatory Lines to Liberty," "Song of the Abolitionist," "Hope for the Enslaved," "Liberty and Slavery," "West India Emancipation", and "The Kneeling Slave."

William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879) was one of the most influential and uncompromising voices of the American abolitionist movement. A journalist and reformer, he founded the anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator in 1831, through which he called for the immediate and unconditional emancipation of all enslaved people. Rejecting gradualism and political compromise, Garrison became known for his moral absolutism, famously declaring that he would be “as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice.” He was a founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society and a tireless advocate not only for abolition but also for women’s rights and broader social reform. Though controversial in his own time, Garrison’s steadfast activism helped shape the national debate over slavery in the decades leading up to the Civil War.

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Front board sunned. Small shelf mark to spine.