The Travels of William Wells Brown

by William Wells Brown, Paul Jefferson

Overview

This is the remarkable story of two trips by a fugitive slave. One is the dramatic and poignant journey of a humiliated slave up the Mississippi to the North, into freedom. The second is a glorious voyage to Europe of the same man, now an elegant and eloquent ambassador of the abolitionists, who hobnobs with writers like Victor Hugo, and moves freely in high society. His autobiography, The Narrative of William Wells Brown, A Fugitive Slave (1845), chronicles Brown's life in bondage -- disclosing aspects of slavery more various and disturbing than even the narrative of his contemporary Frederick Douglass -- and his pilgrim's progress north to freedom. This book is one of the most significant works of slave literature. Ten years later Brown published The American Fugitive in Europe: Sketches of Places and People Abroad, a travel report written in the style of the best European journalism. Both are included in this volume. Both the autobiography and the travel account are classic examples of nineteenth-century first-person prose narratives. Printing the two in one volume allows the reader to experience the richness and variety of nineteenth-century literature at its best.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781558760431
Publisher:	Wiener, Markus Publishers, Incorporated
Publication date:	07/26/2017
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.56(d)

Editorial Reviews

Brown was a runaway slave turned abolitionist and advocate for the rights of African Americans in the mode of Frederick Douglass. The current volume is a compendium of his two best-known literary works . The first, published in 1847p. 3 , deals with the author's life in slavery and his escape to freedom in the North. As an account of the South's peculiar institution and of one man's triumph over it, it equals Douglass's own narrative; so it is surprising that it is not better known, especially because Brown's life parallels his in so many ways. The second work is an entertaining tale of the author's lengthy sojourn in Europe in the early 1850s, where he was sent by abolitionists to lobby support for their cause by being a living example, dispelling Southern propaganda about the innate inferiority of blacks. While in Europe, Brown freely rubs elbows with Victor Hugo and members of the British aristocracy and literati. Editor Jefferson, associate professor of history at Haverford College, has omitted several chapters of American Fugitive that he believes would be less interesting to modern readers. He provides a useful introduction and liberally footnotes the text of both works. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly