Garrison, William Lloyd [editor]:

$3,500 · Offered by William Reese Company

THE LIBERATOR. Vol. XXXV No. 52....Whole No. 1803. The final issue of William Lloyd Garrison's long-running and highly influential abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. Dated December 29, 1865, the issue was published to coincide with the ratification of the thirteenth amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the United States, earlier that same month. The Liberator had debuted thirty-five years before, with the first issue having appeared on January 1, 1831. As Garrison here explains, publication of The Liberator was begun "without a subscriber," and the paper, from the beginning, was met with "fierce hostility" from "Southern slaveholding villany on the one hand, and Northern pro-slavery malice on the other." Carrying on publication in the face of such opposition, Garrison observes, required both "rare moral courage" and "singular personal independence" on the part of both patrons and publisher, and the paper continued to run every week for the next thirty-five years, ending with this, the final issue on December 29, 1865, for which Garrison set much of the type himself. Like earlier issues, the present issue features original material together with selections reprinted from other publications sympathetic to the abolitionist cause. As the final issue, however, this one is distinctive for its celebratory and triumphant tone and contains numerous letters of congratulation and farewell from such figures as Samuel E. Sewell, Samuel J. May, and Henry C. Wright. Fittingly,

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.