The Public Life of Capt. John Brown, with an Auto-Biography of His Childhood and Youth. [Captain, Autobiography]

407, [1] pp. 8vo. On the title page is a device showing a female warrior, captioned 'Sic Semper Tyrannis' - a slogan the publisher and author likely regretted five years later when the same phrase was intoned by John Wilkes Booth immediately after he assassinated President Lincoln. Dedicated to Wendell Phillips, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry D. [David] Thoreau 'Defenders of the Faithful, Who, When the Mob Shouted, "Madman!" Said, "Saint!". A biography of the controversial figure responsible for the attack on Harper's Ferry designed to foment a slave rebellion. The author was himself a radical abolitionist who made his living as a journalist. Before working for Horace Greeley at the New-York Tribune, he submitted articles to papers in Michigan under the pseudonym 'Berwick.' His account of travels in the American South, entitled The Roving Editor: or, Talks with Slaves in the Southern States, was published the year before this volume, and included the content of interviews with slaves. That work was funded by anti-slavery philanthropist Gerrit Smith. This, the first published biography of John Brown, was announced by the publisher the day after Brown's execution.