Eight years a slave in Tunis

(Albertus, Fr[iedrich] Gottl[ieb]). Die merkwürdige Lebensbeschreibung des unglücklich reisenden Uhrmachergesellen, welcher acht Jahre in der türkischen Sklaverey unter vielen Jammer und Elend zugebracht und endlich erlöst wurde.

No place or printer, [c. 1806].

8vo. (16) pp. Modern marbled wrappers.

 2,500.00

Extremely rare German slavery account by the Prussian clockmaker F. G. Albertus. Born in Potsdam in 1770, he visited Amsterdam in 1797, was press-ganged into joining an East India Company ship bound for Batavia, but fell into the hands of Tunisian pirates off the coast of Gibraltar. He details the horrors of his eight-year slavery in North Africa and mentions several of his fellow sufferers by name, including a Spanish Countess named Carolina who was captured at age 16 and was finally ransomed after nine years of slavery. Ultimately, Albertus is ransomed by a Dutch jeweller named Birkenthal and returns to Germany, physically broken but full of praise for the workings of God.

Trimmed rather closely (slight loss to text). Title page bears contemporary censorship stamp of the Delitzsch police. Of the utmost rarity: a single other copy is known (bound within sammelband A/31581:9 in the State and University Library of Hamburg).

References

OCLC 837821535 (SUB Hamburg).