A very rare "dime novel" issued as an American imprint by Beadle and Co, it narrates in almost lurid detail a slave escape from a New Orleans plantation and his journey to Illinois, where he builds a free home in the "land of Lincoln." Iron was an Illinois native and being issued in 1863, the year of the Emancipation Proclamation of Lincoln, it almost certainly not incidental that Illinois was his destination.

The Two Guards represents the harsh realities of the Middle Passage, provides critical commentary about the persistence of the illegal international slave trade in the Americas, and scathing depictions of Southern slaveholders.

Iron, N. C. The Two Guards. By N. C. Iron, Author of "Gideon Godbold," " Agnes Falkland," Etc. New York. Beadle and Company. 1863. 100pp.

A good copy, bound in wraps, generally solid, pages are a bit handled, with light foxing. Original illustrated wraps not present. Likely removed from a larger sammelband, but textually complete, including title and frontis.