John Brown

HUGO Victor
John Brown E. Dentu & Dusacq, Paris 1861, 155 x 235 mm
(6 1/8 x 9 1/4 ”), original wrappers
The very rare first edition.
This copy retains its original photograph of Victor Hugo’s famous drawing of the hanging of John Brown and the facsimile of his manuscript text authorizing the reproduction of this drawing.
A militant for, and martyr of, the abolitionist cause who incited people to armed insurrection, John Brown was arrested in 1859 and hanged on 2 December in Charlestown, Virginia. His execution was one of the causes of the American Civil War.
From exile in Guernsey, Hugo tried to obtain a pardon, but failed. He wrote to President Lincoln: “America must know and be aware that there is something even more frightening than Cain killing Abel, which is Washington killing Spartacus.” This request on the part of Hugo, which seems almost a premonition of the Civil War, won him numerous enemies in the United States.