Original binding of marbled paper-covered boards and green cloth spine, lacking spine label. Illustrated with a frontispiece engraving of the author. Edges worn, especially corners; spine label missing; interior toned. This is the stated Second Edition. Classic autobiography of a free black woman of mixed race. Eldridge was born in Rhode Island, the daughter of a Indian woman and an enslaved African who won his freedom by fighting in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Eldridge earned a living doing housework and borrowed money to invest in real estate, but lost her property to a swindling creditor when she became ill. Friends helped her publish this narrative, copies of which she sold, travelling from town to town, to pay the legal costs of recovering her property. WorldCat is very confusing on listings for all three early editions with many libraries listing a copy of the book when in actuality they have the ebook. There seem to be fewer than five copies of this edition in libraries