[AFRICAN AMERICAN]. KECKLEY, Elizabeth (1818–

[AFRICAN AMERICAN]. KECKLEY, Elizabeth (1818–1907). Behind the Scenes; or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House. New York: G.W. Carleton & Co., 1868. 8vo. Half–title, portrait frontispiece, woodcut head–pieces and capitals; 8pp. publisher’s catalogue at rear. Publisher’s blind–stamped brown cloth, pale blue endpapers (pale spotting to covers, spine sunned, else square and tight). Provenance: George A. David (contemporary signature). FIRST EDITION of an ex–slave’s memoirs that was ghost written by Hamilton Busbey and published for the financial and reputational benefit of Mary Todd Lincoln after her husband’s assassination. After purchasing her freedom, Keckley was employed as a dressmaker in the home of Jefferson Davis and then by Abraham Lincoln, while in the White House, becoming close friends with Mary Todd. A SCARCE TITLE. Howes K–21.