Specs Fine Books, 8940 Sorrento Ridge Drive SE, Byron Center, MI (2026)

07/06/2025

We just purchased this important previously unidentified and undocumented portion of a draft speech by Frederick Douglass.

From late 1845 to early 1847, Douglass was in exile in England. He had long lectured without disclosing his real name, but after being accused of being "too well-spoken to have ever been a slave," he identified himself and his previous owner. Death threats were immediate, and he fled.

While in England, he lectured all across the country, describing the uniquely intractable nature American Slavery, and asked for British abolitionists' support. It was during this same period he drafted his influential autobiography.

The manuscript previously belonged to Anna H. Richardson, the British abolitionist who helped purchase Douglass’ freedom from his previous "owner" while he was in England. Douglass stayed with Richardson while he was on his lecture tour.

Presumably he either left MSs with her and she gifted this to a friend, or she was asked by Douglass to send sheets to persons who helped support the purchase of his freedom by way of appreciation.

04/18/2025

Very scarce first revised edition of Mary Shelley's genre-defining gothic, horror novel. First edition thus with two engraved illustrations and extensively revised text by Shelley, including a new introduction. This also the first ever representation of "the monster" in illustrated form.

And, last but not least, also the first version of the text to include the origin story of the work, in which the guests gathered at Villa Diodati in Switzerland in 1816 were challenged by Lord Byron to all write a ghost story.

The 1831 version of the novel, as here, was a more polished production with a more developed back story, characters and the adoption of a more fatalistic, sympathetic tone, shifting the emphasis from Victor's personal evil and free will to the inevitability of fate and the role of society in forming his person, and thus the "monster."

The present text is almost universally that utilized in modern printings and retellings of the story, thus the true first edition of Frankenstein "as we now have it."

A collector's must!

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstien. Or, The Modern Prometheus. By the Author of The Last Man, Perkin Warbeck, &c. &c. Revised, Corrected, and Illustrated with a New Introduction, by the Author. London. Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley. 1831. 202pp.

04/07/2025

The holiness which consists in angry non-conformity to the world around it and defines itself by its non-participation in the explicit sins of the age can be likened to the obedience of an ass. It is more stubborn than Christian. It has more in common with the Devil than with Christ.

But the holiness which consists of not only abstinence from sin, but also of generosity, of love for those who transgress against it, a desire for the good and flourishing of all it touches, this is not the obedience of an ass, but the holiness of the Son.

Unpublished Sermon by J. Davies, 1787.

03/29/2025

Delighted to have acquired this significant, evocative item.

The present original, mid 19th century wood carving makes an important contribution to understanding the religious experience and self understanding of slave communities of faith. Almost certainly carved by an enslaved person, it likely once adorned the wall of a chapel on a working plantation.

The image is almost completely without precedent. Measuring 12.5 inches wide and 19.5 inches high, it depicts a black angel postured in prayer with a carved relief border framing the central image.

The composition is highly suggestive. By the time this item was created, one image had come to embody and dominate the entire anti-slavery idea; that of Josiah Wedgwood. We include an example in this listing. The present work seems to borrow, with significant variations, from that widely distributed and oft-reprinted graphic.

The first variant we note is that of the enslaved person as emancipated angel rather than slave. The apocryphal Christian view that Christians become angels after death had already taken a decidedly anti-slavery turn before the mid-19th century as a result of the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg. He suggested that slaves might in fact become angels after death and themselves possess Colonialists as slaves. Whether Swedenborg intended this as a literal eschatology or as morally provocative is unclear. But the image of slaves become angels was taken up in the broader folk theological vernacular.

The present work does not preserve the sentiment of retribution. Even if the slave-reversal idea were held by the original community, it certainly could not have been safe to display it visually in their plantation-bound chapel. What is preserved here, however, is the idea that slaves, after death, become angelic beings. Long a piece of folk theology in the Christian tradition, many of the slaves backgrounds in ancestral religions would have made an easy match for the idea to be carried forward.

The posture of prayer also seems borrowed, but again has been reworked. The unnatural construction of the legs in Wedgwood's original, half-knelt in prayer, remains identical. As do the position, but not the posture, of hands lifted in prayer. The right facing petitioner remains as well. A connection seems likely.

As a second variation, the petitioner is not an enslaved person, but a former slave liberated by death. The hands are open to God in prayer rather than closed, likely to retain the idea of prayer as the petitioner's face is turned toward the viewer, the third variant.

If we think of the original viewer, the face being turned toward the enslaved worshipper, makes interaction with the work an incredibly personal experience. Every slave had friends and family who had expired in the fields, been murdered under the whip, or who had perished from disease or malnutrition. In the carving, the dead face the living, and the now glorified say, "Look! We are now free. Look at us! Glorious with wings; seated with the angels. And we have not forgotten you; we are praying for this madness to end. We are in the presence of God almighty pleading for your liberation and your safe journey through the deep river Jordan."

As a final flourish, the artist has made the belt of the supplicant an open link chain. It could be understood as being both promise and remembrance. The viewer could see in the open chain the promise that all this pain would be ended, the unlinked metal now an artifact that sweetened the eternal bless of the redeemed. And the viewer could also be assured by its presence with the departed, that he or she was not forgotten by those who had gone before. The glorified dead carried with them a physical remembrance of those still suffering.

The item has been in an horrible state of storage for many years, including exposure to dampness. This has led to the grain, especially toward the bottom, opening quite widely and to a section of rot at the lower left which has now been removed to prevent spread. It would benefit from further conservation and is worthy of institutional attention.

Available for purchase at:

https://specsfinebooks.com/products/wooden-angel-carving

03/26/2025

Don't like going to the dentist? Hey, at least you're not going during an unexplained rash of chloroform deaths, haven't swallowed your dentures or having a never-before performed oral surgery for a massive sarcoma . . .

Inexplicably scarce, the present work was produced to train dentists, to be sent out en masse to populate the new towns of the Westward Expansion. Dentists were so core a feature of the new towns' necessaries, that they appear in "Western" alongside other stock characters, i.e. sheriffs, brothel owners, preachers, traveling salesmen, and bartenders.

Of special note, two fine engraved full size illustrations of "Blackman's Case of Osteo Sarcoma of Lower Jaw," pre and post operation. A rare early account of surgery on a person of color in the United States, performed, ironically, by George C. Blackman on Lemuel Hinedon at St. John's Hospital in Cincinnati. It is unclear whether it was an act of compassion or "research." Regardless, the editors seem pleased with the results, and seem to show the surgery as a piece of social uplift by the construction of the pre-surgery engravings in traditional southern slave's best garb and the after engraving in full New England suit. Interestingly, the author references other "negro" surgery literature, as though perhaps expecting surgery to function differently, etc.

Contents include: New Fusible Allows by B. Wood; Dental Surgery by P. G. C. Hunt; Gutta Percha for Separating and Regulating Teeth by B. Wood; A New Method of Using Vulcanite by P. G. C. Hunt; Vulcanite Ideas; Discussions of the Kentucky State Dental Association; Buccal Inflammations - Diseases of Crystal and Glass Cutters; Dental Fistulas; Artificial Dentures by Dr. John Allen; Case of Abscess of Parotid Gland; Use of Chloroform and Aconite in Neuralgia; A Fatality from Chloroform; Adventure with the File by George S. Fouke; Appointment of Delegates to the Mississippi Dental Association; Selection and Arrangement of Teeth in Constructing Dental Substitutes by W. Calvert; Fang Filling - Read at a Meeting of the Mad River Valley Society by A. A. Blount; Fang-Filling and Treatment of the Alveolar Abscess by B. A. Rose; Account of the Mad River Valley Dental Society; Reforms in Medical Education; Treatment of Neuralgia by Subcutaneous Injection by A. Ruppaner; Swallowing Several Teeth Attached to a Plate with Safe Passage through the Bowels; The Buccal Secretions; Sensitive Dentine bty George F. Foote; The Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, and Remedial Treatment of the Fifth Pair of Nerves by J. H. M'Quillen; The Oneness of Dentistry; A Critic Criticized; Development of the Teeth of Cattle and the Mode of Ascertaining their Age by the Same; Province of the Dentist by J. Taft; Purple of Cassius by William Calvert; Hypertrophy; Biographical Sketch of Dr. Alvin Blakesley of Utica [with frontis portrait]; A Rare Form of Fracture of the Lower Jaw Treated by a Novel Method by E. J. Fountain; Ether and Chloroform; Defective Assimilation in Infants - Its Prevention and Treatment by Dr. Routh; Sulphuric Ether as a Substitute for Chloroform; More Deaths from Chloroform; Treating and Capping Exposed Nerves;

Taft, J. and George Watt [eds.]. The Dental Register of the West. Cincinnati. J. T. Toland, Publsiher, 38 West Street. 1860. 367pp.

https://specsfinebooks.com/products/1860-dentistry-in-wild-west-dentures-swallowed-oral-surgery-on-negroes-chloroform-deaths

03/06/2025

FINE GROUP OF 1840 TRACTS, AMONG THE FIRST PRINTED IN SIAMESE; ISSUED BY THE "ADONIRAM JUDSON" OF SIAM, i.e. THAILAND.

An absolutely exceptional sammelband of very scarce tracts translated and issued by co-workers of Adoniram Judson, John Taylor and Eliza Grew Jones, including a Siamese summary of Christian Doctrine modeled on, if not simply translated from, Judson's first tract in Burmese.

The volume itself, inscribed and gifted by J. T. Taylor. Many of the tracts without a single catalogued representation in academic institutions and untraced at auction. An irreplaceable piece of early American Baptist Missions, Thai history, and early Thai printing.

John Taylor Jones [1802 –1851] and his wife, Eliza Grew Jones, were among the earliest missionaries to Siam, now Thailand. Alongside his lifetime of service for the evangelization of the Siamese people, he is credited with introducing to Siam the modern world map, significantly developing Thai printing processes, and producing a fresh translation of the New Testament in Siamese (Thai) from Greek.

Jones was born in New Ipswich, New Hampshire [1802], attended Brown College from 1819 to 1820, and worked as a teacher from 1820 to 1823. He then graduated from Amherst College in 1825, and undertook graduate studies at Andover Theological Seminary from 1827 to 1830, and then at Newton Theological Institution in 1830.

He married Eliza Grew Jones on July 14, 1830, and was ordained in Boston on July 28, 1830, originally as a missionary to Burma under the American Baptist Missionary Union (ABMU). He and his wife set sail for the country shortly thereafter, joining Adoniram Judson in Burma, two years at Maulmein and later at Rangoon. They ended up taking charge of the work at Maulmein, letters to the American Board being signed at the time by both Judson and Jones. Correspondence between Judson and Jones can be seen HERE.

At the same time, the pioneering German Lutheran missionary to Siam, Karl Gutzlaff, had been petitioning the ABMU for more missionaries. After a period of something like a mentoring with Adoniram Judson and the experienced missionaries in Burmah, J. T. and Eliza Jones were reassigned to Siam in 1832. They arrived in April 1833 on the schooner Reliance, owned by British merchant and unofficial delegate from the British Crown to Siam, Robert Hunter.

Hunter was influential with the prime minister of Siam, known as the praklang. Sympathetic with the cause of Christian missions, Hunter had interceded with him on behalf of Rev. Gutzlaff, who, in an excess of zeal, offended the Siamese within the first two days of his arrival. He hit the ground running, throwing thousands of tracts into cottages, and every floating house, boat, and junk. The result of which was he was ordered expelled and his tracts burnt.

Hunter persuaded the praklang to have the tracts translated for the king to read. The king found nothing objectionable in them, but said candidly and openly that he preferred his own religion.

With Hunter’s help, the Rev. and Mrs. Jones were welcomed and stationed in Cokai, intentionally near a settlement of Burmese.

His work began immediately, including honing in his linguistic skills and beginning the work of translation. By September of 1833, he had produced a catechism on geography and astronomy in Siamese and translated Adoniram Judson’s first Burman tract containing a summary of Christian doctrines, an example of which is offered as part of the present sammelband.

Eliza, also an able translator, is represented by several works in the present volume. She died of cholera at Bangkok in March of 1838. John married again, to Judith Leavitt, in November of 1840. She died at sea in March of 1846 while en route back to the US with her husband and daughter. He was married for a third and final time in August of 1847, to Sarah Sleeper who, after Jones' death in 1851, married Jones' adopted son S. J. Smith [1853]. They continued the work in Siam, making Sleeper one of the longest serving missionaries in early Siamese missionary history, at 42 years.

An interesting academic article on the connectivity between William Carey, Adoniram Judson, and the Jones family HERE.

https://specsfinebooks.com/products/1840-thai

02/24/2025

A superb first edition, early printing of the Memoir of Solomon Northup. Northup was a free-born African American who was drugged and kidnapped in Washington, D.C. before being transported to New Orleans and sold into enslavementin 1841

Published during the first year of his regained freedom, the narrative was among the most influential of the anti-slavery narratives of the era and formed the basis of the film of the same name, which won the Best Picture Academy Award in 2013.

02/19/2025

God's people have always been called to be "near the broken-hearted."

This very scarce 19th century volume includes two full years of an important periodical created for the edification of women and to help raise awareness and funds for societies to rescue vulnerable women from poverty, work houses, prostitution, etc.,

The periodical became especially important as women became the "home guard" during the Civil War and the number of single mothers in the years after the war reached statistically unsustainable levels, leading to an upswing in prostitution and female enslavement, and working poor, etc.,

The periodical also provides critical insight into views of the idealized woman of the era, etc. etc.

This particular volume also contains a special "mourning issue" following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

If you want to see more of the contents, see the full listing at:

https://specsfinebooks.com/products/1864-1865

02/17/2025

Know a young leader who seems a bit . . . ummm, shall we say . . . confident?

Don't forget that at just 24 years old, C. H. Spurgeon licensed the first full biography of himself to be published in the United States. In large gold letters, the spine read, "Spurgeon. The World's Greatest Preacher" and sported the pictured rather smarmy engraving of himself.

After a life of successes, failures, and rather intense personal suffering, we can only imagine what 1892 Spurgeon thought when he reflected back on this.

https://specsfinebooks.com/products/1858-c-h-spurgeon-e-l-magoon-life-and-sermons-of-the-rev-c-h-spurgeon

02/12/2025

A superb early Jane Aitken imprint of the Presbyterian Constitution with early manuscript additions by Reformed Presbyterian divine, Gilbert McMaster articulating the wish to ensure and retain the separation of church and state. A fascinating document.

The last two images on the show the additions, headed with The Subscribers of this Confession Say. The additions include,

"We do not wish to see any religious constitution, whether orthodox or heterodox, true or false, added y the civil power, except for security and that common to each and all, Christian and anti-Christian."

https://specsfinebooks.com/products/1806-anonymous-the-constitution-of-the-presbyterian-church-in-the-usa

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