A Short Account of the Malignant Fever, Lately Prevalent in Philadelphia:

CAREY, Mathew. A Short Account of the Malignant Fever, Lately Prevalent in Philadelphia: with a Statement of the Proceedings that took Place on the Subject in Different Parts of the United States.

Phila.: Printed by the Author, November 23, 1793. second edition “a corected reprint of the first edition” Austin In the first three editions of this book, Carey made numerous racist comments regarding the supposed immunity of blacks to the yellow fever and, more importantly, accusations that blacks were profiteering during the epidemic. Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, ministers and leaders of the black community, had provided strong rebuttals of these points, and Carey revised the book in response to their criticisms. "One of the foremost American publishers of the late 18th- and early 19th-centuries, Carey was also a prolific author, among whose works is this first-hand account of the yellow fever epidemic which claimed the lives of more than 4,000 Philadelphians between August and November 1793.... The author's account of the epidemic's effect on daily life--the cessation of commerce, the interruption of political activity, and the dissolution of bonds among friends and within families--is reminiscent of passages from Boccaccio, Defoe or Manzoni" (annotation to Miner 80, the 1st ed.).

Includes David Rittenhouse's meteorological charts, list of all burials by date and religions, and list of all the dead by name and profession.

From Catalog I

Carey fled Philadelphia during the worst of the epidemic and wrote this account within weeks of the crisis. The second edition, printed before the year was out, contains the inflammatory accusations against the Black community that Jones and Allen would spend the next year refuting. The three Carey editions in this collection -- second, fourth plain, and fourth in original wrappers -- trace an arc from accusation to partial retraction.