FREE AT LAST, by Mrs. Jane S. Collins.

PITTSBURGH: Murdoch, Kerr & Co, 1896. First Edition.

Hardcovers, green cloth covered boards, 5x7 inches, 208 pages. ILLUSTRATED with 15 plates (lacking the frontispiece).

FAIR condition: the covers are spotted, worn through at the corners and along much of their edges and spine folds, but are original and still doing their job; internally, previous owner's signature (Virginia Sherman) on the front pastedown, lacking the frontispiece but the other 15 called for plates are all present, foxing to the endpapers otherwise just a sprinkling here and there, there is a 1 inch closed tear to the bottom edge of the front free endpaper and a 1 inch closed tear and associated crease to front edge of the title page, a couple pages are dog-eared; overall the inner pages remain tight, bright, clean and clear. A solid copy with original but flawed covers of this early, rare, woman's novel concerning civil rights for African-Americans.

FREE AT LAST is one of the first published books whose title is those famous words "free at last", words which came from a spiritual and which later became a sort of anthem for Martin Luther King, Jr. during his speeches and rallies. The novel illustrates the need for Black civil rights, shows the injustices caused by Jim Crow laws, and calls for African-American temperance. The novel's protagonist is the son of slaves. He insists on being admitted to the White House to meet the President.

The author Mrs. Jane S. Collins was a civil rights activist and temperance crusader. She and her group of women followers would sit in saloons and refuse to leave until arrested and taken away by police. A form of passive resistance that was used by many movements to follow.

A historically important book written by a white American woman during the Jim Crow era.