THE PRIZE, OR, THE STORY OF GEORGE BENSON AND WM. SANDFORD

Newburyport: Charles Whipple, 1824. Very good.. First edition of this Newburyport-printed tale of the theft of a melon and the resulting punishment for the thief, published by active abolitionist Charles Whipple. Publisher Charles Whipple was an active member of the Massachusetts abolitionist movement. According to correspondence held by the Boston Public Library, Whipple was a member of the Essex County Anti-Slavery Society, and at least once sent noted abolitionist journalist William Lloyd Garrison a number of books "for the benefit of the People of Color in Boston or elsewhere." Frequently reprinted by the American Sunday School Union, this first edition is quite rare: it is not recorded by Rosenbach or Osborne, and OCLC locates only one institutional holding, at the Victoria and Albert Museum. 5.25'' x 3.25''. Original pink pictorial wrappers. Pictorial title page with ten in-text woodcut illustrations. 36 pages, ads to rear wrapper. Contemporary pencil gift inscription to inner front wrapper, "A. [?]. Farrar / from Aunt Hannah." Contemporary pencil equation to rear wrapper.