Dred; A Tale of The Great Dismal Swamp.

STOWE, Harriet Beecher.

Item Number: 142035

Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1856.

First American edition, first issue of Stowe’s second popular novel, a sequel to her immensely popular Uncle Tom’s Cabin. First printing of both volumes. Vol. I with the ascender of the “d” in “dictatorial” almost directly below the vertical stroke of the “r” in the line just above it on line 3 of page 88. Vol II. with “the Dicksons are fewer, and have” in the ninth line up from the bottom of page 370. BAL 19389. Octavo, two volumes recased with the original publisher’s blind-stamped cloth laid down. BAL’s binding A with pale yellow endpapers. In very good condition. Embossed bookseller ticket to Vol. II.

Dred “complements Uncle Tom’s Cabin by showing the demoralizing influence of slavery on the whites. [The titular character] Dred is modeled on Nat Turner” (Hart, 211). Dred is the story of Nina Gordon, an impetuous young heiress to a large southern plantation, whose land is rapidly becoming worthless. It is run competently by one of Nina's slaves, Harry, who endures a murderous rivalry with Nina's brother Tom Gordon, a drunken, cruel slaveowner. Nina is a flighty young girl, and maintains several suitors, before finally settling down with a man named Clayton. Clayton is socially and religiously liberal, and very idealistic, and has a down-to-earth perpetual-virgin sister, Anne. Dred, the titular character, is one of the Great Dismal Swamp maroons, escaped slaves living in the Great Dismal Swamp, preaching angry and violent retribution for the evils of slavery and rescuing escapees from the dog of the slavecatchers.