Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1863. First American Edition. First Issue. Bound in the original patterned-purple cloth with embossed boards and a gilt spine. Exceptionally tight and scarce in this condition. Interior is clean and bright with minimal toning. Octavo. Very Good condition.

A searing firsthand account of slavery in the Deep South. Kemble exposes the brutal realities of life on a Georgia plantation in the late 1830s. Kemble’s Journal is recognized as a canonical record of slavery’s harsh realities in the antebellum South.

Kemble, an English-born actress, married Pierce Butler, a Georgia-born Philadelphian, whose extensive holdings in cotton, rice, and tobacco rested on slave labor. The couple visited Georgia in the winter of 1838-9 and stayed at the Butler plantation. Kemble witnessed firsthand the living and working conditions of the slaves. She documented in vivid detail the clothing, medical care, diseases, illiteracy, and religious life of the enslaved peoples, particularly women. John A. Scott, the prolific author who edited an edition of Kemble’s Journal in 1961, described it: “Passionate in its denunciation of oppression … it presented a picture of slavery so stark that Victorian audiences found it unpalatable.” Furthermore, notable African-American historian Charles Blockson wrote, “Her famous journal  had a great political influence during this period, epitomizing  the split between the North and South. The book undoubtedly provided a greater understanding of the ‘peculiar institution.’ The pages burst with the vitality of the period.”