Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African in Two Volumes. To Which is Prefixed Memoirs of his Life. 3rd edition

Dublin: Printed by Brett Smith, for Richard Moncrieffe, No. 16 Capel-Street, 1784. The Third Irish Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. 2 volumes in 1 (continuously paginated). xiii, [1], 310p. Contemporary (original?) leather. 18 cm. This copy lack the frontis (a portrait of Sancho). Modest scattered foxing, mostly on first few leaves. Former owner's bookplate dated 1925 inside front cover. Small brown spot with a hole at top of title-leaf and a lesser brown spot at same place on following leaf. The first edition of this book was published in two volumes in London in 1782 but is likely to have also been issued as a 2 vols. in 1. This is an appealing copy of the Third Edition of the Dublin edition. OCLC locates several copies of the 1st and 3rd Dublin editions, both dated 1784. No further Dublin editions or printings appear to have been published. We don't know if there was a Second Dublin edition. We also don't know if there were any textual or other differences between the First and Third Dublin editions. The Library of Congress has Thomas Jefferson's copy of the first Dublin edition. Sancho was born on a slave ship. He was taken with his parents to the Spanish West Indies where his mother quickly succumbed to disease and his father committed suicide. Sancho was brought to England at the age of two. Sancho grew up enslaved. The Duke of Montagu took an interest in Sancho and encouraged Sancho to read. After the Duke's death, Sancho fled his enslavement and became at least temporarily butler to the widowed Duchess of Montagu who left him a small inheritance and an annuity when she died. Sancho spent several years living on his modest inheritance. He later served for several years as a valet for the successor Duke of Montagu and married Ann Osborne with whom he had several children..Sancho and his wife were grocers during his last several years. Sancho, despite being self-educated, was admired as a witty and erudite correspondent whose letters were often preserved by their recipients. An exchange of letters between Sancho and Laurence Sterne was included in "Letters of the late Rev. Mr. Laurence Sterne" published in 1775. The letters in this volume were compiled and edited by Frances Crewe, one of his correspondents. A brief memoir titled "The Life of Ignatius Sancho" is found at pages v-xiii and was written by Joseph Jekyll.