Background
William Wells Brown was born around 1816 in Lexington, Kentucky. The year is variously given as 1814, 1815, and 1816. His mother was a slave, his father is said to have been one George Higgins, a white slaveholder.
( The first play published by an African-American, this c...)
The first play published by an African-American, this comic 1858 melodrama about two slaves who secretly marry explores the racial tensions between North and South in the years just before the Civil War. With its mix of action, comedy, social commentary and an authenticity only a former slave could recreate, The Escape is essential reading for students of black history and literature. It is also a remarkable glimpse at characters and situations rarely seen from the contemporary black perspective. Born into slavery, American author WILLIAM WELLS BROWN (1814–1884) escaped to the North where he became a prominent abolitionist lecturer, novelist, playwright, and historian. His novel, Clotel: or, The President’s Daughter, is considered by historians to be the first novel written by an African American. His other works include The Negro in the American Rebellion and The Black Man.
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(The Narrative of William W. Brown a Fugitive Slave is a c...)
The Narrative of William W. Brown a Fugitive Slave is a classic American slave biography by William Wells Brown. Thirteen years ago, I came to your door, a weary fugitive from chains and stripes. I was a stranger, and you took me in. I was hungry, and you fed me. Naked was I, and you clothed me. Even a name by which to be known among men, slavery had denied me. You bestowed upon me your own. Base indeed should I be, if I ever forget what I owe to you, or do anything to disgrace that honored name! As a slight testimony of my gratitude to my earliest benefactor, I take the liberty to inscribe to you this little Narrative of the sufferings from which I was fleeing when you had compassion upon me. In the multitude that you have succored, it is very possible that you may not remember me; but until I forget God and myself, I can never forget you. Your grateful friend, WILLIAM WELLS BROWN. William Wells Brown (circa 1814 – November 6, 1884) was a prominent African-American abolitionist lecturer, novelist, playwright, and historian in the United States. Born into slavery in Montgomery County, Kentucky, near the town of Mount Sterling, Brown escaped to Ohio in 1834 at the age of 20. He settled in Boston, Massachusetts, where he worked for abolitionist causes and became a prolific writer. While working for abolition, Brown also supported causes including: temperance, women's suffrage, pacifism, prison reform, and an anti-tobacco movement.1 His novel Clotel (1853), considered the first novel written by an African American, was published in London, England, where he resided at the time; it was later published in the United States. Brown was a pioneer in several different literary genres, including travel writing, fiction, and drama. In 1858 he became the first published African-American playwright, and often read from this work on the lecture circuit. Following the Civil War, in 1867 he published what is considered the first history of African Americans in the Revolutionary War. He was among the first writers inducted to the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame, established in 2013.2 A public school was named for him in Lexington, Kentucky. Brown was lecturing in England when the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law was passed in the US; as its provisions increased the risk of capture and re-enslavement, he stayed overseas for several years. He traveled throughout Europe. After his freedom was purchased in 1854 by a British couple, he and his two daughters returned to the US, where he rejoined the abolitionist lecture circuit in the North. A contemporary of Frederick Douglass, Brown was overshadowed by the charismatic orator and the two feuded publicly
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(Born a slave and kept functionally illiterate until he es...)
Born a slave and kept functionally illiterate until he escaped at age nineteen, William Wells Brown (1814–1884) refashioned himself first as an agent of the Underground Railroad, then as an antislavery activist and self-taught orator, and finally as the author of a series of landmark works that made him, like Frederick Douglass, a foundational figure of African American literature. His controversial novel Clotel; or, the President’s Daughter (1853), a fictionalized account of the lives and struggles of Thomas Jefferson’s black daughters and granddaughters, is the first novel written by an African American. This Library of America volume brings it together with Brown’s other groundbreaking works: Narrative of William W. Brown: A Fugitive Slave, Written by Himself (1847), his first published book and an immediate bestseller, which describes his childhood, life in slavery, and eventual escape; later memoirs charting his life during the Civil War and Reconstruction; the first play (The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom, 1858), travelogue (The American Fugitive in Europe, 1855), and history (The Black Man, His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements, 1862) written by an African American; and eighteen speeches and public letters from the 1840s, 50s, and 60s, many collected here for the first time. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
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(This book was converted from its physical edition to the ...)
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
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(First published in December 1853, "Clotel: or the Preside...)
First published in December 1853, "Clotel: or the President's Daughter" was written amid then unconfirmed rumors that Thomas Jefferson had fathered children with one of his slaves. "Clotel: or the President's Daughter" story begins with the auction of his mistress, here called Currer, and their two daughters, Clotel and Althesa. The Virginian who buys Clotel falls in love with her, gets her pregnant, seems to promise marriage-then sells her. Escaping from the slave dealer, Clotel returns to Virginia disguised as a white man in order to rescue her daughter, Mary, a slave in her father's house. A fast-paced and harrowing tale of slavery and freedom, of the hypocrisies of a nation founded on democratic principles, "Clotel: or the President's Daughter" is more than a sensationalist novel. It is a founding text of the African American novelistic tradition, a brilliantly composed and richly detailed exploration of human relations in a new world in which race is a cultural construct.
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( Born into slavery in Kentucky, William Wells Brown (181...)
Born into slavery in Kentucky, William Wells Brown (1814-1884) was kept functionally illiterate until after his escape at the age of nineteen. Remarkably, he became the most widely published and versatile African American writer of the nineteenth century as well as an important leader in the abolitionist and temperance movements. Brown wrote extensively as a journalist but was also a pioneer in other literary genres. His many groundbreaking works include Clotel, the first African American novel; The Escape: or, A Leap for Freedom, the first published African American play; Three Years in Europe, the first African American European travelogue; and The Negro in the American Rebellion, the first history of African American military service in the Civil War. Brown also wrote one of the most important fugitive slave narratives and a striking array of subsequent self-narratives so inventively shifting in content, form, and textual presentation as to place him second only to Frederick Douglass among nineteenth-century African American autobiographers. Ezra Greenspan has selected the best of Brown's work in a range of fields including fiction, drama, history, politics, autobiography, and travel. The volume opens with an introductory essay that places Brown and his work in a cultural and political context. Each chapter begins with a detailed introductory headnote, and the contents are closely annotated; there is also a selected bibliography. This reader offers an introduction to the work of a major African American writer who was engaged in many of the important debates of his time.
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(First published in December 1853, Clotel was written amid...)
First published in December 1853, Clotel was written amid then unconfirmed rumors that Thomas Jefferson had fathered children with one of his slaves. The story begins with the auction of his mistress, here called Currer, and their two daughters, Clotel and Althesa. The Virginian who buys Clotel falls in love with her, gets her pregnant, seems to promise marriage—then sells her. Escaping from the slave dealer, Clotel returns to Virginia disguised as a white man in order to rescue her daughter, Mary, a slave in her father’s house. A fast-paced and harrowing tale of slavery and freedom, of the hypocrisies of a nation founded on democratic principles, Clotel is more than a sensationalist novel. It is a founding text of the African American novelistic tradition, a brilliantly composed and richly detailed exploration of human relations in a new world in which race is a cultural construct. • First time in Penguin Classics • Includes appendices that show the different endings Brown created for the various later versions of Clotel, along with the author's narrative of his "Life and Escape," Introduction, suggested readings, and comprehensive explanatory notes
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William Wells Brown was born around 1816 in Lexington, Kentucky. The year is variously given as 1814, 1815, and 1816. His mother was a slave, his father is said to have been one George Higgins, a white slaveholder.
Profiting by school instruction and some help from friends, William acquired considerable knowledge of the fundamentals. In the North he soon learned to speak the English language so fluently that he could easily present the claims of the negro for freedom.
He remained abroad until the autumn of 1854. During these years of his activity as a reformer Brown found time also to study medicine. Like many of the physicians of his time, he did not undergo formal training in this field. He attended lectures in medical science and obtained privately other knowledge requisite to service as a practitioner. But although he knew sufficient medicine to be useful in the profession, the urgent need for fighting the battles of the negro kept him in the work of reform. Brown's reputation rests largely on his ability as an historian.
When a youth Brown was taken to St. Louis and was hired out on a steamboat. He was next employed in the printshop of Elijah P. Lovejoy, then editor of the St. Louis Times. Working in this capacity, Brown got his start in education; but he was hired out on a steamboat again at the close of the next year.
In 1834 he escaped into Ohio, intending to cross Lake Erie into Canada. On the way he was sheltered by a Quaker, Wells Brown, whose name he assumed in addition to the name William which he had borne as a slave. He now took up steamboating on Lake Erie and obtained the position of steward in which he was able to help many a fugitive to freedom.
During 1843-49 he was variously employed as a lecturer of the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society, and the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.
In 1849 he visited England and represented the American Peace Society at the Peace Congress in Paris.
His writings covered various fields. The first to appear was his Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave (1847). His next important book was Three Years in Europe (1852). In 1853 he published Clotel, or The President's Daughter, a Narrative of Slave Life in the United States. He next wrote a drama entitled The Dough Face, which was well received and was followed by another play, The Escape, or, A Leap for Freedom.
At the time of his death his home was in Chelsea, Massachussets. William Wells Brown died in Chelsea, Massachusetts, on November 6, 1884. Despite his literary achievements and his contributions in the struggle for freedom and equality, he was buried in an unmarked grave in the Cambridge Massachusetts Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Highly recommended by the American Anti-Slavery Society as an apostle of freedom, William Wells Brown was welcomed by famous Europeans such as Victor Hugo, James Haughton, George Thompson, and Richard Cobden. In 1863 he published his first history entitled, The Black Man: His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements, including an autobiographical memoir, which ran through ten editions in three years. The Negro in the American Rebellion: His Heroism and His Fidelity (1867) also made a favorable impression and supplied the need for an account of the part played by the negroes in the Civil War. The last work of importance which he wrote was The Rising Son: or, The Antecedents and the Advancement of the Colored Race (1874). In this treatise he undertook to trace the history of the negro from Africa to America. He is the first African American to publish a novel with Clotel, or, The President's Daughter: a Narrative of Slave Life in the United States, in 1853 in London (Harriet Wilson's Our Nig published in 1859, is the first novel published by an African American in the United States). He was among the first writers inducted to the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame. An elementary school in Lexington, Kentucky, where he spent his early years, is named after him.
(Born a slave and kept functionally illiterate until he es...)
( The first play published by an African-American, this c...)
(First published in December 1853, "Clotel: or the Preside...)
(First published in December 1853, Clotel was written amid...)
( Born into slavery in Kentucky, William Wells Brown (181...)
(This book was converted from its physical edition to the ...)
(The Narrative of William W. Brown a Fugitive Slave is a c...)
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He was also interested in temperance, woman's suffrage, and prison reform, and was associated with the most ardent abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips.
The abolitionists gave the author unstinted praise and widely circulated his books in this country and Europe. Although, like most historians of his day, he did not approach his subject scientifically, he passed for many years as the outstanding authority on the negro.
Quotations:
In his 1852 memoir of travel in Europe, he wrote:
"He who escapes from slavery at the age of twenty years, without any education, as did the writer of this letter, must read when others are asleep, if he would catch up with the rest of the world. "
He was a member of the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society, and the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.
Quotes from others about the person
An article in the Scotch Independent reported the following:
"By dint of resolution, self-culture, and force of character, he (Brown) has rendered himself a popular lecturer to a British audience, and vigorous expositor of the evils and atrocities of that system whose chains he has shaken off so triumphantly and forever. We may safely pronounce William Wells Brown a remarkable man, and a full refutation of the doctrine of the inferiority of the negro. "
During his first year of freedom in 1834, Brown at age 20 married Elizabeth Schooner. They had two daughters who survived to adulthood: Clarissa and Josephine. William and Elizabeth later became estranged. In 1851, Elizabeth died in the United States.
Brown had been in England since 1849 with their daughters, lecturing on the abolitionist circuit. After his freedom was purchased in 1854 by a British couple, Brown returned with his daughters to the US, settling in Boston. On April 12, 1860, the 44-year-old Brown married again, to 25-year-old Anna Elizabeth Gray in Boston.
In 1856, Well's daughter Josephine Brown published Biography of an American Bondman (1856), an updated account of his life, drawing heavily on material from her father's 1847 autobiography. She added details about abuses he suffered as a slave, as well as new material about his years in Europe.
1839–1874
1836 – unknown
In freedom, he took the names of Wells Brown, a Quaker friend who helped him after his escape by providing food.
