The Sorrows of Slavery,

£7,500 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

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 murde

• Binding: Hardcover

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