May 27, 2020 Founders & Patriots
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/27/2020
“A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston, Perpetrated in the Evening of the Fifth Day of March 1770 by Soldiers of the XXIXth Regiment, Which, with the XIVth Regiment, were then quartered there. With some Observations on the state of things prior to that Catastrophe. Printed by Order of the Town of Boston. London, Re-printed for E. and C. Dilly in the Poultry and J. Almon, in Piccadilly. M.DCC.LXX.” [1770]. Octavo, 166 pp.; marbled printer’s boards with spine bound in Russia leather bearing short title in gilt lettering. A rare and important work printed within months of the Boston Massacre, the event that laid the foundation for American independence. The "Narrative was prepared by a committee consisting of James Bowdoin (afterwards governor of Massachusetts), Dr. Joseph Warren (killed at Bunker Hill, 1775), and Samuel Pemberton. The Narrative itself occupies pp. 5--33 of this edition, pp. 34-162 contain “the several [ninety-six] Depositions referred to in the preceding Narrative, and also other Depositions relative to the Subject of it”, followed by an index on pp. 163-166. John Adams, who defended the British soldiers at the subsequent trial, later wrote of the Boston Massacre: “On that night the foundation of American Independence was laid . . . . Not the battle of Lexington or Bunker Hill, not the surrender of Burgoyne or Cornwallis were more important events in American history than the battle of King [now State] street. . . .” CONDITION: ex. libris copy; front board loose and spine scuffed and chipped at top and bottom; internally, the engraved frontispiece of the Boston Massacre missing and the title page partly detached, otherwise a bright and clean copy in very good condition. JLK
Illustrated and discussed on pp. 52-53 of "For Liberty I Live".