The Sorrows of Slavery,

JAMIESON Rev. John (1789.)

£7500.00  [First Edition]

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AN IMPORTANT AND SUBSTANTIAL VERSE AGAINST THE SLAVE TRADE

a Poem. Containing a faithful statement of facts respecting the African Slave Trade.

First edition. 8vo in fours. Nineteenth-century polished sheep, stab-holes to gutter, pale dampstaining to upper margin not affecting text, discreet bookplate to front free endpaper. 80pp. London, John Murray,

An unsophisticated copy of Jamieson's poem which appeared in a vital year for the abolition movement.

 

John Jamieson (1759-1838) was born in Glasgow and, at nine years old, was educated at Glasgow University. He is best known for his Etymological dictionary of the Scottish Language (Edinburgh, 1808). This is his second published work, indeed, his second published poem. "Sorrows is written in a formal, literary English, and betrays no hint of the ear for Scots, or even for colloquial speech, that Jamieson was later to display. It was, however read and well liked by many in the abolitionist ranks, including Wilberforce, and brought Jamieson a degree of literary notice" (Rennie, p.18). Granville Sharpe was another prominent abolitionist to make his acquaintance at this time. Jamieson makes it clear in the opening pages that he's drawn information from the likes of Ramsay, Clarkson, Newton, Nicholls and Falconbridge.

 

Certainly, Jamieson pulls no punches in depicting the horrors of the slave trade. He even commences the poem with an apology to the Ladies of Britain before depicting the slave markets, the Middle Passage, and then life on the plantations in dramatic and unsparing detail. At the forefront of his attention is the suffering of enslaved mothers. Deborah Lee notes that this was a widespread feature of abolitionist poems: "They figured her in one of three stereotypical ways: as murderous mother, as activist mother, or as passive, 'good' mother. Poetic treatments of murderous mothers, as mentioned in conjunction with Wordsworth's poems, were numerous, but one striking example [is] J. Jamieson's The Sorrows of Slavery (1798) [which] imagines a slave mother's first words to her new born child ... Jamieson fuses the slave woman's role as breeding body with the roles of plantation workers in the 'world's wide field.' He thereby addresses how prenatal obstruction affected the conditions not only of the slave mother's labor, but of slave labor at large."

 

The poem was received positively. Although the Critical Review disliked Jamieson's "poetical exaggerations", others, including The General Magazine, were much more approving, stating that he "has shewn himself a bard of respectable abilities, a man of unaffected humanity, and a Christian worthy of the sacred character."

 

1789 was a vital year in the history of the abolition movement. Jamieson's poem was prompted by James Phillips who was the Quakers' official printer. "While the Commons began examining evidence, James Phillips was collecting and publishing abolitionist materials as quickly as he could. According to Committee records, in May and June, he published 'Stanfield's poem entitled "A Guinea Voyage" and C. B. Wadstrom's "Observations on the Slave Trade"'. He paid John Jamieson Minister to a Congregation of Seceders from the Scottish Church in Edinburgh, £5 for an anti-slavery poem, 'The Sorrows of Slavery'. In mid-June, Phillips received £400 'on his account'" (Jennings).

 

In the same year, on behalf of The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, Phillips published in broadside format the Description of a slave ship Brookes. It was one of the defining images of the abolition movement, which would feature in Wilberforce's 1792, Abstract of the Evidence, as well as Thomas Clarkson's The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade ... (London, 1808). Of course, the other central image was Josiah Wedgwood's "Am I not a Man and a Brother." Three years later, Phillips was also responsible for distributing Cowper's The Negro's Complaint.

 

Jamieson's distinguished career was noted on both sides of the Atlantic with membership, per ODNB, of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries, of the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh, of the American Antiquarian Society of Boston, United States, and of the Copenhagen Society of Northern Literature. He was also a royal associate of the first class of the Royal Society of Literature instituted by George IV.

 

Clover, D., "The British Abolitionist Movement and print culture: James Phillips, activist, printer and bookseller" in Society for Caribbean Studies Annual Conference, (Warwick University, 2013). Goldsmiths’, 14011; Hogg, 4208; Jackson, p.153; Jennings, J., The Business of Abolishing the British Slave Trade, 1997, p.57; Lee, D., Slavery and the Romantic Imagination, (Philadelphia, 2004) pp.210-11; Rennie, S., Jamieson's Dictionary of Scots: The Story of the First Historical Dictionary, (Oxford, 2012), p.18; Sabin, 35740; Zachs, W., The First John Murray, (Edinburgh, 1998), p.724.

Stock Code: 233730

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