Lot 238: STILL, WILLIAM

N/A The Underground Rail Road. A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters, &c., Narrating the Hardships[,] Hair-breadth Escapes[,] and Death Struggles of the Slaves in their Efforts for Freedom, as related by themselves and others, or Witnessed by the Author; together with Sketches of some of the Largest Shareholders, and most Liberal Aiders and Advisers, of the Road. Revised Edition. Philadelphia: Wm. Still, Publishers, 1883 In 8s (9? x 6? in.; 235 x 159 mm). Engraved frontispiece portrait of the author, numerous wood-engraved plates and text illustrations. Publisher's pebbled maroon cloth, covers panelled in blind and elaborately gilt, maroon endpapers, gilt edges; spine slightly faded, inner hinges broken, preliminary leaves loose. Half maroon morocco slipcase, chemise. Association copy, from Clemens's library, with a lengthy autograph anecdote about an escaped slave on the front flyleaf. Still's history was first published in 1872 and "is generally acknowledged as a classic unrivalled by any previous firsthand account of the Underground Railroad" (Blockson). "William Still was the most energetic and adventurous of the many Philadelphians who operated the Underground Railroad. He had been born free, but his parents had undergone the hardships of escape. ? When Still turned his experience into a book, he filled it with tales of crated escapees, murdered agents, soft knocks on side doors, and a network as clandestine and complicated as anything dreamed up by James Bond" (Wolf). Clemens's detailed note (running to 146 words) records a covert escape similar to those described by Still, which he had evidently heard about from his mother-in-law, Olivia Lewis Langdon. "Mrs. Luckett was a slave in Richmond, with a daughter 3 years old. Her brother, Jones, an escaped slave, lived in Elmira (1844.) He cut two duplicate hearts out of pink paper, & wrote on one, 'When you see this again, you will know.' No other word accompanied it. After a while a white man went [to] Richmond with the other heart, called on the woman's mistress on some pretext which brought in the slaves: Mrs. L. saw & recognized the duplicate heart; she escaped, with her child in the night, joined the man at a place appointed, (Annapolis,) & thence got through safely to Elmira. She lives in Canada, now (whither she had to flee when the fugitive slave law was passed (1850,) & the child is also married & lives in Binghamton, N.Y., (1884.) This account given by Mother, who knew the several parties." Clemens has also closely marked Still's section on Seth Concklin (pages 24?38) with marginal rules. Mrs. Luckett's adventure shares many elements in common with Clemens's celebrated dialect narrative "A True Story Repeated Word for Word as I Heard It" (1874), and he may have written the present sketch in anticipation of expanding it to a full short story. References: Lilly/Karanovich 18; Gribben 2:666; Blockson, 101 Influential Books By and About People of African Descent 41; Wolf, Negro History 1553?1903 184