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Hard cover, 8vo in half brown cloth stamped in blind with ruling to corners and spine edge, patterned with circular motifs. The spine in calf with an applied black label, "LECTURES" tooled and ruled in gilt. Vp. V.d. ** CONDITION: Very Good. Sunning to boards, wear to spine head and tail, and at joints. Inside, hinges in order, and contents generally very clean with exception of prelims. Final pamphlet more soiled and foxed than others. Binding sound. (1)" SIX LECTURES ON THEOLOGY AND NATURE." 160pp. including Appendix entitled "Outline of a Plan for a Self-Sustaining Institution for Homeless and Outcast Females" **Author British-born MISS EMMA HARDINGE [Britten], former stage-performer-turned-spiritual-medium and public speaker, captures the appetite for Spiritualism in 1860's America, and its connection to social reform, in a series of lectures given "over the course of three Sundays" at the Kingsbury Hall, Chicago, Ill., to benefit homeless women. An autobiographical introduction traces her hardscrabble origins after which she emigrated to New York in 1855, becoming a professional spiritual medium. She argues the religious and scientific basis of humankind's belief in the Mysteries of the Unknown stem from ancient astrology, not inconsistent with Christianity. Sets forth the tenets of spiritualism as a healing art and force for good in the world. She would go on to found the magazine, "Two Worlds," and establish the National Federation of Spiritualists (Spiritualists' National Union (This not in Sabin, although others are). Rare. **(2) REV. THEODORE PARKER, (1810-60) militant Massachusetts abolitionist, wrote "THE GREAT BATTLE BETWEEN SLAVERY AND FREEDOM CONSIDERED IN TWO SPEECHES Delivered Before the American Anti-Slavery Society, at New York, May 7, 1856 by Theodore Parker, Minister of the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society in Boston. Phonographically reported." (Boston: Benjamin H. Greene, 1856) 33pp. plus 93pp. (Sabin, Vol. IV, p. 193.) This pamphlet follows Parker's arrest the year prior in 1855 at Boston's Faneuil Hall, for seditious speech on his abolitionist views. (See Sabin Vol. XIV, p.195,: "The Trial of Theodore Parker, for the "Misde-meanor" of A Speech in Faneuil Hall against Kidnapping, before the Circuit Court of the United States, at Boston, April 3, 1855 etc.) Parker later became infamous as a conspirator and fund-raiser for the "Secret Six," a group of northerners committed to the provocation of a slave uprising at Harper's Ferry, Virginia under fellow radical abolitionist, John Brown in 1859. **(3) "A RIVULET FROM THE OCEAN OF TRUTH: AN AUTHENTIC AND INTERESTING NARRATIVE OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF A SPIRIT FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT. Proving, by an Actual Instance, the Influence of Man, On Earth, Over the Departed." by John S. Adams (Boston: Bela Marsh, 15 Franklin Street, 1854.) First Edition, 72pp. This, not in Sabin.* English-born AUTHOR JOHN STOWELL ADAMS ( 1823-1893) became an influential author on the topic of Spiritualism after his wife experienced a revelation of her own spirit-medium powers in 1854 upon association with Dr. A.B. Child of Boston, the story of which is outlined, in the first person, in this remarkable pamphlet. Adams also went on to edit a progressive collection of poetry in 1857, including works of abolitionists Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and the Cary sisters, called "The Psalms of Life: a Compilation of Psalms, Hymns, Chants, Anthems, etc, Embodying the Spiritual, Progressive and Reformatory Sentiment of the Present Age," (Boston: Oliver Ditson & Co.,1857) Rare. **(4) THEODORE PARKER, "A SERMON ON THE CONSEQUENCES OF AN IMMORAL PRINCIPLE AND FALSE IDEA OF LIFE, Preached at the Music Hall, in Boston. on Sunday, November 26, 1854." (Boston: Benjamin H. Greene, 1855). First edition. Printed Prentiss and Sawyer, No. 19 Water St., Boston, 32pp. (Sabin, note under no. 58766, p. 196.) Fist-pounding appeal against "institutional tyranny" sanctioned by Church and State against the "Natural Rights of Man." Topics: poverty, government-sanctioned corporate fraud by railroad barons, bankers, and developers in America and abroad (cf. Crane, Robert Schyler, Henry Meiggs, Steamship Arctic, So. America), and most importantly, the injustice of the Fugitive Slave Bill and the injustices of slavery. (5) JUSTINUS KERNER (1786-1862); Mrs. Crow, translator. THE SEERESS OF PREVORST: BEING REVELATIONS CONCERNING THE INNER LIFE OF MAN, AND THE INTER-DIFFUSION OF A WORLD OF SPIRITS IN THE ONE WE INHABIT," (New York: Partridge & Britten's "Spiritual Library," 1853). 119pp. plus [1] appendix. *German Author Dr. Kerner, a medical doctor who discovered botulism, was also a Romantic poet and interested in mesmerism. He observed the trances of the clairvoyante and somnabulist Friederike Hauffe (1801-1829). First published in German in 1829; London, 1845. Scarce. **(6)Various, ADDRESSES ON THE DEATH OF HON. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS...July 9, 1861," 92 pp. Note under Sabin 29694, p. 498.(7) [ORSON SQUIRE FOWLER], "PHRENOLOGY APPLIED TO MATRIMONY," [7]-106 pp. Reprint, circa 1850's. Lacking title, copyright and one illust. A pseudo-scientific explainer of the "laws of social relations within the family" as analyzed by the novel shapes of the female cranium. Line and engraved illustrations within text, labelled nos. 2,-6, 8 and 9. Other subheadings including: "Do Not Marry an Intemperate Companion," Modern Female Education," and "Gratify Each Other's Faculties."**Overall, then, GREAT PRIMARY SOURCE material with which to explore the foment of the various demands for change in this time period, whether social, political reforms for women, children and people of color in nineteenth-century American society; to explore the extent, causes and expressions of Spiritualism; to discover areas of overlap between Spiritualism and Transcendentalism.
Ref: AMER 9436
$1300.00