[ABOLITIONISM] Nya resa genom Nord-americanska fri-staterna år 1788.

Från franska originalet sammandragen, och med anmärkningar försedd af Johan Reinhold Forster. Öfwersatt från tyskan. Stockholm : A. J. Nordström, 1799. Octavo (172 x 112 mm), contemporary half calf over papered boards (rubbed and with light staining, corners bumped), spine richly gilt (a little faded and with a couple of small marks) and with dark red morocco title-piece lettered in gilt; all edges stained red; pp. [4], 328, [4 publisher’s advertisements]; text in Swedish; front pastedown with early manuscript number label; scattered foxing, marginal stain on p. 14, small water stain at fore-edge margin of pp. 321-2, otherwise internally very good.

Jacques Pierre Brissot (1754-93), also known as Brissot de Warville, was a French politician and journalist. His journey to the United States in 1788-89 was undertaken in connection with his engagement in the anti-slavery movement, for which he was an active lobbyist. While in America Brissot visited abolitionists. He was deeply impressed with the American ideals of liberty and the sense of freedom enjoyed by (non-enslaved) Americans; evidently, the respect was mutual, as in early 1789 he was elected an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Brissot was still in Philadelphia – and even contemplating settling permanently in the States – when the French Revolution erupted. Inspired by his American experience, he was enthusiastic about the Revolution’s aims and confident of its prospects, and he returned to France as soon as possible, determined to make his contribution to the revolutionary cause. Ironically, the only “liberty” Brissot found was in death: he was one of around 45,000 Parisians executed in a six-month period at the height of The Terror.

Brissot’s account of his trip to the United States was originally published in three parts in 1791 as Nouveau voyage dans les États-Unis de l’Amérique septentrionale. A German translation – made by the naturalist Johann Reinhold Forster – was published in 1792, and it was on this version that the Swedish translation was based.