London: G. Routledge & Co., 1854. First edition. Octavo (leaves measuring 166 x 102 mm). viii, 168, [32 ads]. Complete, with the frontispiece and three plates. A Near Fine copy. Publisher's red cloth stamped in gilt. Spine sunned, with a bit of a lean. Yellow coated endpapers. Contemporary ink ownership inscription to upper pastedown. Some foxing to endpapers, but an excellent, bright copy of a scarce book. OCLC records only seven copies (five in the United States and two in the United Kingdom).

In The Black Princess, Olivia, an enslaved Black girl, and Mary, a wealthy white American, grow up alongside each other and, eventually, help each other achieve freedom and independence. In her youth, Olivia is enslaved by Mary's family, but, by the end of the story, Mary helps Olivia buy freedom for herself, her husband, and her children. Though separated at various points in the story, the two young women remain entwined throughout their lives – Olivia saves Mary's life at one point in their youth, and they later reconnect in adulthood, at which point Mary has become involved with the American abolitionist movement. In her introduction, the author, Jane M. Besset, writes that she intended the story to inspire young women in take action in the abolitionist movement and to portray an aspirational Black heroine: "I have tried to show, in the character of Mary, what can be affected by the unfettered action of a single weak girl, working against such a giant as Slavery; and in that of Olivia (drawn from life), that noble impluse, high purpose, and unwearied perseverance, are not confined to the favoured white man" (pp. vii-viii).

We could not locate much information about Jane M. Besset, though it is notable that she was a British author. Since slavery had already been abolished in Britain by the time she published The Black Princess, the story is set in the United States, and Besset writes in her introduction that she intends the story to motivate British readers to participate in the American antislavery movement. She writes that she hopes to encourage British readers to deal "another great blow, if not a final one...to Slavery, all over the world" (p. viii). Near Fine (Item #8127)