Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1876. First edition. Original publisher's cloth binding stamped in black and gilt. Black coated endpapers. Measuring 205 x 140mm and collating complete with albumen photograph frontis: [2], 70, [2]. A Near Fine copy with a bit of mottling to the boards; retaining its bright gilt. Internally fresh and unmarked save two nearly identical contemporary gift inscriptions to the front endpaper and first blank "To Rachel M. Williams in memory of her own mother" with accompanying handwritten lyric. Privately printed and distributed among the Garrison cohort, it is likely that the owner of this book was Rachel Morton Williams, daughter of Sarah Louisa Blackwell of the infamous Blackwell family and close allies of the Garrisons. Scarce as a result of its limited print run, it last appeared at auction in 1910. The present is the only copy in trade.

The memorial to Helen Eliza Garrison is both a testament to an individual's influence as well as to the crucial role that women played more widely in activist organizing in the 19th century. It is also evidence of how qualities traditionally dismissed as "feminine" could complement more aggressive organizing tactics and reach new audiences. "While her husband got all the glory, Helen Garrison was an abolitionist in her own right. She raised funds for the American Anti-Slavery Society, particularly as a manager of the annual Boston Anti-Slavery Bazaar" (Women's History). Inspired in large part by her father, who frequently sheltered self-emancipated peoples in Providence as they fled slave traders and hunters she would go on to assist her husband by supporting his newspaper The Liberator with fundraising through one of largest and among the first interracial abolitionist groups in America, the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. In the face of hardship, violence, and threats of lynching against her husband, she maintained her home as a space where activists of all sexes and races could meet, could perform the grass roots work of printing and mailing pamphlets, and could debate the intersections of abolition and women's rights.

In compiling the present memorial text, her husband William Lloyd Garrison included the funeral tributes of other organizers such as Lucy Stone and Wendell Phillips. But Garrison, who due to illness could not even attend his wife's service, also includes his own words, which speak to an irreparable loss which would affect the remainder of his life. "I confess that my emotional nature is powerfully stirred within me as I contemplate the loving trustfulness and moral courage exhibited by her." (Item #5551)