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The American Fugitive in Europe. Sketches of Places and People Abroad.
Boston: John P. Jewett and Company; Cleveland, Ohio: Jewett, Proctor & Worthington; New York: Sheldon, Lamport & Blakeman, 1855. Sm 8vo (7.5” x 5.125”), light brown cloth with gilt spine. Frontis. port., viii, [9]–320 pp. Laid in at p. 69 is an undated “Union Republican Ticket” with the names of Vermont Republican nominees. CONDITION: Good, some discoloration to covers, light wear to extremities, foxing to front ffep, frontis. and title. First edition. African American abolitionist William Wells Brown’s account of his travels in Europe as a fugitive slave, undertaken while living in exile in the United Kingdom. Adapted from Brown’s 1853 work published in London and titled Three Years in Europe: Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met, with added chapters. Brown’s travelogue, considered the first published by an African American, describes his tours in the British Isles and continental Europe, contrasting his personal experience abroad with his treatment in the United States, exposing the hypocrisy of American slavery in a country that claims freedom and equality as core values. William Wells Brown (ca. 1814–1884) was an abolitionist writer and speaker. Born into slavery in Kentucky, he escaped north at nineteen and joined the anti-slavery movement, running fugitive slaves to Canada across Lake Erie. In 1836, he settled in Buffalo, which in 1843 hosted the National Convention of Colored Citizens. There, Brown met and became friends with notable Black abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass and Charles Lenox Remond. He began speaking publicly and gained recognition, lecturing at the 1844 American Anti-Slavery Society meeting in New York. In 1847, Brown moved to Boston and published his autobiography, Narrative of William W. Brown, that same year. Two years later, Brown traveled to Britain for a lecture tour, but the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act compelled him to extend his stay, and he spent several years traveling and writing in Europe. He published his first novel, Clotel—considered the first novel written by an African American—in London in 1853. The following year, British abolitionists preemptively “purchased” Brown’s freedom, enabling him to return to the United States, where he continued to lecture and write fiction, a play, the present travelogue, and history. REFERENCES: Blockson 1973 citing the 1969 edition; Afro-Americana 1719; “William Wells Brown, 1814?–1884” at Documenting the American South (UNC Chapel Hill) online.
Item #10439
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Price: $2,750.00
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