Behind the Scenes

Or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House

by Elizabeth Keckley

First edition.  New York:  G.W. Carleton & Company, Publishers, 1868 

Hardback is overall in VERY GOOD condition.

• Brown cloth covers with blindtooling. 
• Boards show some exposure, smudges, edgewear.  Corners are bumped and worn, with exposed board.  See photos.
• Spine has gilt text and is dimmed with firm ends.
• Binding is rebacked with original spine strip laid down, new pastedowns.  See photos.
• End papers have some moderate foxing, staining, pencil marks. 
• Frontispiece is present.    
• Interior is gently age-toned, exhibits scattered foxing, smudges and stains to margins.  See photos. 
• Inside pages are free of writing and intentional marks.
• PS2025.1126
• 371 pages. 4.75 x 7.25 inches

First edition, first printing.  Publisher's brown cloth, rebacked with original spine laid down, new blue endpapers.  Generally Very Good overall with bumping and wear to corners, rubbing and some exposure to cloth, a few reading smudges at the page edges and scattered foxing to contents.  Rare in commerce.

Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley (1818-1907) was an African-American seamstress, activist, and writer who lived in Washington, D.C.  Born into slavery, Elizabeth purchased her and her son's freedom in 1855, started a dressmaking business, and moved to Washington D.C. in 1860.  She also started the Contraband Relief Association in August 1862, later called the Ladies’ Freedmen and Soldiers’ Relief Association, to help formerly enslaved people and the families of Black soldiers during the Civil War.

Keckley was the personal dressmaker and confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln.  After the American Civil War, Keckley wrote and published an autobiography, Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House, in 1868.  It was both a slave narrative and a portrait of the first family, especially Mary Todd Lincoln, and it was controversial because of information it disclosed about the Lincolns' private lives. [Wiki]

Please see photos. More photos available upon request.

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