Applewood Books

Originally published in 1863, The Fortune Teller and Dreamer's Dictionary by Madame LeMarchand--a "celebrated Parisian fortune teller"--is a little gem of occult knowledge. Readers will learn to tell fortunes using dice or ordinary playing cards, read tea leaves and coffee grounds, interpret dreams, make charms, read palms, and much, much more. The contents include the "Lady's Love Oracle," as well as the "Art of discovering Truth from Falsehood, Augury of the Flower, Charms and Ceremonies, and How to tell fortunes by Moles." There are also instructions for telling a person's character by assigning numerical values to the letters in his or her name, adding the numbers, and referring to the number in the book's chart. Filled with diagrams and illustrations to supplement and clarify the written text, this is a reissue of a rare and unusual Civil War-era book.

The view that slavery could best be described by those who had themselves experienced it personally has found expression in several thousand commentaries, autobiographies, narratives, and interviews with those who "endured." Although most of these accounts appeared before the Civil War, more than one-third are the result of the ambitious efforts of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to interview surviving ex-slaves during the 1930s. The result of these efforts was the Slave Narrative Collection, a group of autobiographical accounts of former slaves that today stands as one of the most enduring and noteworthy achievements of the WPA. Compiled in seventeen states during the years 1936-38, the collection consists of more than two thousand interviews with former slaves, most of them first-person accounts of slave life and the respondents' own reactions to bondage. The interviews afforded aged ex-slaves an unparalleled opportunity to give their personal accounts of life under the "peculiar institution," to describe in their own words what it felt like to be a slave in the United States. --Norman R. Yetman, American Memory, Library of Congress This paperback edition of all of the Maryland narratives is reprinted in facsimile from the typewritten pages of the interviewers, just as they were originally typed.

One of the most memorable speeches in American history, Frederick Douglass's What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? is now available in an elegant hardcover edition. Douglass first delivered the famous speech on July 5, 1852, to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society. After paying respect to the patriotic architects of America's independence, Douglass exposed the hypocrisy of a nation that enshrined the inalienable rights of man yet enslaved millions. The signing of the Declaration of Independence was meaningless to slaves, Douglass argued, and the annual celebration of a freedom not afforded to them was the worst possible insult. Throughout the speech, Douglass directly quoted passages from the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bible to support his argument that slavery must be abolished in the United States. Douglass was especially critical of the faith leaders in America that used the church to justify slavery rather than to spearhead positive societal change. Despite Douglass's condemnation of the institutions that protected slavery, the speech also emphasized America's young age and her potential to change for the better. In keeping with this belief in an America that would one day guarantee freedom for all, Douglass delivered "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" to audiences nationwide in the decade preceding the Civil War. Famous figures such as James Earl Jones, Morgan Freeman, and Douglass's descendants have performed small sections of the hour-long speech. Abridged editions of the speech are also disseminated for educational purposes. Because "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" is an incredibly nuanced speech, it is often misrepresented or shared out of context. Now you can read the speech as it was meant to be experienced, in its entirety. Frederick Douglass's most famous speech is as relevant today as when it was first delivered in 1852. A defining document of the United States, What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? is essential reading for all Americans.