This volume contains six works by William Wells Brown: Narrative of William W. Brown, A Fugitive Slave. Written by Himself (1847); Clotel; or, The President’s Daughter (1853); The American Fugitive in Europe: Sketches of Places and People Abroad (1855); The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom (1858); The Black Man, His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements (1862); and My Southern Home: or, The South and Its People (1880). Also included are eighteen speeches and public letters published from 1844 to 1876.
Brown’s works often appeared in multiple editions in his lifetime, and he frequently revised and rewrote them extensively. His novel Clotel, to cite the most extreme example of this practice, was published in four versions, each under a different title and with a different publisher: the first in London with a trade house in 1853, the second as a heavily revised serial fiction in the New York Weekly Anglo-African in 1860–61, the third in Boston as a dime novel in James Redpath’s Books for the Camp Fires series in 1864, and the fourth in Boston in 1867 as a hardbound novel. He adapted each edition to a specific audience: the first, with its light-complexioned fugitive slaves taking refuge in Europe, was a polemical work addressed principally to a British audience; the second edition, with its principal African American male character darkened and more committed to black solidarity, aimed at an African American readership; the third, an abridged romance, designed chiefly to recruit Union soldiers to the cause of black freedom; and the fourth, with four chapters added at the end to extend the plot beyond the Civil War, serving to deliver a message about communal elevation to a post-emancipatory audience.
Brown’s first published book, Narrative of William W. Brown, A Fugitive Slave. Written by Himself, was published in Boston in 1847 by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, the only fugitive slave narrative to receive its imprimatur other than the 1845 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. The first printing, issued in both paper and cloth covers, sold out within six months. Brown had three additional printings made during 1848–49, adding illustrations and content but making few alterations to the core narrative. Brown owned the stereotype plates, which he took with him to Ireland in 1849 for use in issuing the first in a series of Anglo-Irish printings, which appeared from 1849 to 1852. The text in the present volume follows the 1847 first printing.
Clotel; or, The President’s Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States, the first novel written by an African American, was published in London in 1853 by the firm of Partridge and Oakey. It sold poorly, with few copies crossing the Atlantic, and was not reprinted in this form for more than a century, though Brown (as described above) brought out several revised versions. The present volume reprints the first published edition.
The American Fugitive in Europe: Sketches of Places and People Abroad is an expanded version of the first travelogue by an African American, Three Years in Europe; or, Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met, which Brown had published in London and Edinburgh in 1852. Brown published The American Fugitive in 1855 with the Boston-based firm of John P. Jewett and Company, the leading antislavery publisher in the country. Although widely reviewed and praised, it was not reprinted in the nineteenth century. The 1855 version is the text printed in the present volume.
The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom. A Drama in Five Acts, the first play published by an African American, was issued in Boston by Robert Wallcut in 1858 as a cheap softcover pamphlet. Sales figures are unknown, but it apparently required only a single edition. Brown had completed the play eighteen months before its publication, and often performed it across the northern states in one-person recitations that continued up to the Civil War. The text in the present volume is that of the 1858 pamphlet.
The Black Man, His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements was first published jointly by Thomas Hamilton in New York and Robert Wallcut in Boston in late 1862 (though the copyright date is 1863), just a month before the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. It sold well, and a new, slightly expanded version came out the next year, with further printings and editions to follow, the last, bearing an 1865 Savannah, Georgia, imprint, published shortly after the Union Army occupied the city. The present volume prints the text of the 1863 expanded edition published in Boston by James Redpath.
My Southern Home: or, The South and Its People was self-published in Boston in 1880 by Brown and his wife Annie Gray Brown under the imprint A. G. Brown and Company and sold by subscription. It proved popular and required multiple printings, with sales continuing at least until Brown’s death in 1884. The first printing of 1880 provides the text used here.
The following is a list of the speeches and public letters included in this volume, in the order of their appearance, giving the source of each text.
“Letter from Wm. W. Brown—A Methodist Deacon’s Prayer,” National Anti-Slavery Standard 5 (September 26, 1844), 66.
A Lecture Delivered before the Female Anti-Slavery Society of Salem at Lyceum Hall, Nov. 14, 1847 (Boston: Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1847).
“Speech at the Royal Public Subscription Rooms, Exeter, England, May 5, 1851,” [Exeter] Western Times, May 10, 1851.
“An Appeal to the People of Great Britain and the World,” Liberator 21 (September 5, 1851), 142.
“Visit of a Fugitive Slave to the Grave of Wilberforce,” Julia Griffiths, ed. Autographs for Freedom, 2nd series (Auburn, NY: Alden, Beardsley, and Co., 1854), 70–76.
“Speech at Town Hall, Manchester, England, August 1, 1854,” Manchester Examiner and Times, August 5, 1854.
“Speech at Brick Wesley Church, Philadelphia, October 17, 1854,” National Anti-Slavery Standard 15 (October 28, 1854), 2–3.
“Speech at Horticultural Hall, West Chester, Pennsylvania, October 23, 1854,” National Anti-Slavery Standard 15 (November 4, 1854), 1.
“Letter from the West,” National Anti-Slavery Standard 15 (March 31, 1855), 3.
“Letter from W. W. Brown,” National Anti-Slavery Standard 15 (April 21, 1855), 3.
“Speech at Anniversary of New York Anti-Slavery Society, May 8, 1856,” National Anti-Slavery Standard 16 (May 16, 1856), 2.
“John Brown and the Fugitive Slave Law,” The Independent 22 (March 10, 1870), 6.
“Speech at Annual Meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society, May 9, 1860,” National Anti-Slavery Standard 21 (May 26, 1860), 4.
“Review of Mr. Yancey’s Speech,” Liberator 30 (October 26, 1860), 172.
“Speech at Annual Meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society, May 6, 1862,” Liberator 32 (May 16, 1862), 77.
“‘The Black Man’ and Its Critics,” Anglo-African 3 (August 8, 1863), 1.
“Speech at Annual Meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society, May 7, 1867,” National Anti-Slavery Standard 28 (May 18, 1867), 3.
“Dr. Wells Brown on the Colour Question,” The Good Templars’ Watchword 3 (November 1, 1876), 724–25.
This volume presents the texts of the printings chosen as sources here but does not attempt to reproduce features of their typographical design. The texts are printed without alteration except for the correction of typographical errors. Spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are often expressive features, and they are not otherwise altered, even when inconsistent or irregular. The following is a list of typographical errors corrected, cited by page and line number: 38.5, told I; 62.5, master.”; 85.14, master.”; 86.5, examination,; 91.11, ‘I think; 95.15, hazlenuts.; 97.14, Synder; 101.11, Mr J. C.; 110.11, “God; 110.16, murders;; 118.27, school‘; 121.37, i’ll; 125.1, or l ying; 131.38, slave,; 131.39, she”; 134.37–38, unthinkeing; 151.26, sleeper’s; 173.19, I; I am; 173.26, use. ‘No,’; 184.16, heard. and; 184.31, bitterand; 190.2, Curtis; 195.29, statesman,; 207.29, address,”; 207.30, Green?; 212.25, recal; 213.18, statment,; 268.32, “In; 268.35, it.”; 305.20, to to; 310.13, Tiziano, Vercellio; 338.35, they been; 370.12, ‘How; 383.22, It is; 420.38, Cato—; 422.28, somebody,; 443.9, fine looking-women,; 446.22, Dr. G You; 453.37, in. Exit; 465.1, Washinton; 482.32, them Mr.; 489.20, acknowldge; 492.28, in in; 529.7, Groton,; 562.21, Murat; 598.8, Regaud; 609.23, Arcaau;; 613.5, Caius; 623.29, C Nell; 696.40, hands’; 697.13, people?; 702.7, in’ em;; 706.26, name.; 732.16, you, said; 741.19, a—h!”; 750.22, become; 763.5, offer.”; 775.11, “With; 776.9, at the the; 777.7, “As; 781.15, bill”; 785.27, party.”; 793.18, nonenity; 797.2, dis.’; 804.28, emnity; 812.22, himself.”; 823.25, that that; 829.22, day. Now; 844.9, Phyllis, Wheatly,; 846.12, hardship,; 854.3, bethine; 854.3, severaltimes; 866.7, sympathising; 868.5, up n; 877.7, slavery—; 891.19, (Cheers. It; 914.26, Said, I; 920.37, depair; 924.34–35, bidder bringing; 928.12, amalgation; 938.11, wold; 939.18, degading; 940.15, Romans Saxons; 944.11, State and; 949.2, are doing,; 956.10, to.