The Known World

All Available Formats + Editions

——

$9.99

NOOK Book

——

$9.99

The Known World (eBook) Pub. Date: 3/17/2009 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
$0.75

$10.98

Paperback

$0.75

$10.98

The Known World (Reprint) Pub. Date: 5/25/2004 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

$1.84

$11.60

The Known World Pub. Date: 8/29/2006 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

$1.99

——

The Known World (Large Prin) Pub. Date: 6/15/2004 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

$1.99

——

The Known World Pub. Date: 10/28/2004 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
$0.02

$24.20

Hardcover

$0.02

$24.20

The Known World (First Edition) Pub. Date: 7/31/2003 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
$1.99

$35.95

Audiobook

$8.70

$35.95

The Known World (CD - Unabridged, 12 CD's) Pub. Date: 6/15/2004 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

$1.99

——

The Known World (Cassette - Unabridged 15 Hours 10 Cassettes) Pub. Date: 8/19/2003 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Customers Who Bought This Also Bought

ADVERTISING

Overview

One of the most acclaimed novels in recent memory, The Known World is a daring and ambitious work by Pulitzer Prize winner Edward P. Jones.

The Known World tells the story of Henry Townsend, a black farmer and former slave who falls under the tutelage of William Robbins, the most powerful man in Manchester County, Virginia. Making certain he never circumvents the law, Townsend runs his affairs with unusual discipline. But when death takes him unexpectedly, his widow, Caldonia, can't uphold the estate's order, and chaos ensues. Jones has woven a footnote of history into an epic that takes an unflinching look at slavery in all its moral complexities.

Winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Winner of the 2003 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.

Finalist for the 2003 National Book Award for Fiction.

Editorial Reviews

QBR-The Black Book Review

“Complex, beautifully written, and breathtaking...the book will knock the wind out of you with the depth of its compassion.”

More Reviews (1) Fewer Reviews

From The Critics

At the end of Edward P. Jones's stunning new antebellum novel, an artist recreates the book's plantation setting as "a map of life made with every kind of life man has ever thought to represent himself." One of the characters says, "It is what God sees when He looks down."

The author's viewpoint has the same effect in this book about slavery, property, freedom and family, all in a most unusual setting. With hard-won wisdom and hugely effective understatement, Mr. Jones explores the unsettling, contradiction-prone world of a Virginia slaveholder who happens to be black. — Janet Maslin

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780060557553
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 5/25/2004
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 432
Sales rank: 48,217
Product dimensions: 5.31 (w) x 8.00 (h) x 0.97 (d)

Meet the Author

Edward P. Jones

More than ten years after his first collection of short stories was nominated for a National Book Award, Edward P. Jones's second book (and first novel) created an even bigger critical stir. Jonathan Yardley called The Known World, about a black slaveholder in the antebellum South, "the best new work of American fiction to cross my desk in years."

Biography

Edward P. Jones grew up in Washington, D.C., where his mother worked as a dishwasher and hotel maid to support Jones and his brother and sister. Though she couldn't read or write herself, Jones's mother encouraged her son to study, and eventually a Jesuit priest who knew Jones suggested he apply for a scholarship at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts. There, Jones discovered the odd fact that in the antebellum South, there had been free black people who owned black slaves.

"It was a shock that there were black people who would take part in a system like that," he later told a Boston Globe interviewer. "Why didn't they know better?" That question stayed with Jones for more than 20 years and would eventually inspire his first novel, The Known World.

After graduating from Holy Cross with a degree in English, Jones moved back to Washington, D.C., and began writing short stories, aiming to create a portrait of his city in the mode of James Joyce's Dubliners. He attended writing seminars, then earned an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Virginia, but he felt that neither writing nor teaching was a reliable enough source of income. He took a day job as a business writer for an Arlington, Virgina, nonprofit, and held it for almost 19 years -- during which he published his first short-story collection, Lost in the City, which was nominated for a National Book Award. He also began planning his first novel, composing and revising chapters entirely in his head. Jones had just taken a five-week vacation to start writing the book when he found out he was being laid off, so he lived on severance pay and unemployment during the few months it took him to finish his first draft.

The Known World was published in 2003, 11 years after Lost in the City. "With hard-won wisdom and hugely effective understatement, Mr. Jones explores the unsettling, contradiction-prone world of a Virginia slaveholder who happens to be black," wrote Janet Maslin in The New York Times Book Review. Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post Book World called the book "the best new work of American fiction to cross my desk in years."

Though some reviewers have praised the author's impressive research, Jones insists he made almost everything up. During the 10 years he spent thinking about his novel, he accumulated shelves full of books about slavery, but ultimately he read none of them, choosing instead to write the book that had already taken shape in his mind. The depth and detail of Jones's fictional Manchester County has been compared with William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County; Martha Woodroof of National Public Radio also noted similarities to Dickens, in that Jones spins "a densely populated, sprawling story built around a morally bankrupt institution."

Despite all the attention he's earned, Jones seems unwilling to assume the role of celebrity writer. "If you write a story today, and you get up tomorrow and start another story, all the expertise that you put into the first story doesn't transfer over automatically to the second story," he explained in an online chat on Washingtonpost.com . "You're always starting at the bottom of the mountain. So you're always becoming a writer. You're never really arriving."

Good To Know

Unable to find a full-time job after college, Jones was on the verge of borrowing $15 from his sister for a bus ticket to Brooklyn, where she lived, when he got word that Essence magazine was publishing his first story for $400. A job at the American Association for the Advancement of Science enabled him to stay in Washington, D.C., where he continued writing the stories for his collection Lost in the City.

Jones has never owned a car, commuting instead by public transportation. "I don't want to own something that you can't take into your apartment at night," he explained in an interview with The Washington Post.

1. Hometown:
  
  Washington, D.C.
1. Date of Birth:
  
  October 5, 1950
2. Place of Birth:
  
  Washington, D.C.
1. Education:
  
  B.A., College of the Holy Cross, 1972; M.F.A., University of Virginia, 1981

Read an Excerpt

The Known World

By Edward P. Jones

Harper Collins Publishers

Chapter One

Liaison. The Warmth of Family.

Stormy Weather.

The evening his master died he worked again well after he ended the day for the other adults, his own wife among them, and sent them back with hunger and tiredness to their cabins. The young ones, his son among them, had been sent out of the fields an hour or so before the adults, to prepare the late supper and, if there was time enough, to play in the few minutes of sun that were left. When he, Moses, finally freed himself of the ancient and brittle harness that connected him to the oldest mule his master owned, all that was left of the sun was a five-inch-long memory of red orange laid out in still waves across the horizon between two mountains on the left and one on the right. He had been in the fields for all of fourteen hours. He paused before leaving the fields as the evening quiet wrapped itself about him. The mule quivered, wanting home and rest. Moses closed his eyes and bent down and took a pinch of the soil and ate it with no more thought than if it were a spot of cornbread. He worked the dirt around in his mouth and swallowed, leaning his head back and opening his eyes in time to see the strip of sun fade to dark blue and then to nothing. He was the only man in the realm, slave or free, whoate dirt, but while the bondage women, particularly the pregnant ones, ate it for some incomprehensible need, for that something that ash cakes and apples and fatback did not give their bodies, he ate it not only to discover the strengths and weaknesses of the field, but because the eating of it tied him to the only thing in his small world that meant almost as much as his own life.

This was July, and July dirt tasted even more like sweetened metal than the dirt of June or May. Something in the growing crops unleashed a metallic life that only began to dissipate in mid-August, and by harvest time that life would be gone altogether, replaced by a sour moldiness he associated with the coming of fall and winter, the end of a relationship he had begun with the first taste of dirt back in March, before the first hard spring rain. Now, with the sun gone and no moon and the darkness having taken a nice hold of him, he walked to the end of the row, holding the mule by the tail. In the clearing he dropped the tail and moved around the mule toward the barn.

The mule followed him, and after he had prepared the animal for the night and came out, Moses smelled the coming of rain. He breathed deeply, feeling it surge through him. Believing he was alone, he smiled. He knelt down to be closer to the earth and breathed deeply some more. Finally, when the effect began to dwindle, he stood and turned away, for the third time that week, from the path that led to the narrow lane of the quarters with its people and his own cabin, his woman and his boy. His wife knew enough now not to wait for him to come and eat with them. On a night with the moon he could see some of the smoke rising from the world that was the lane - home and food and rest and what passed in many cabins for the life of family. He turned his head slightly to the right and made out what he thought was the sound of playing children, but when he turned his head back, he could hear far more clearly the last bird of the day as it evening-chirped in the small forest far off to the left.

He went straight ahead, to the farthest edge of the cornfields to a patch of woods that had yielded nothing of value since the day his master bought it from a white man who had gone broke and returned to Ireland. "I did well over there," that man lied to his people back in Ireland, his dying wife standing hunched over beside him, "but I longed for all of you and for the wealth of my homeland." The patch of woods of no more than three acres did yield some soft, blue grass that no animal would touch and many trees that no one could identify. Just before Moses stepped into the woods, the rain began, and as he walked on the rain became heavier. Well into the forest the rain came in torrents through the trees and the mighty summer leaves and after a bit Moses stopped and held out his hands and collected water that he washed over his face. Then he undressed down to his nakedness and lay down. To keep the rain out of his nose, he rolled up his shirt and placed it under his head so that it tilted just enough for the rain to flow down about his face. When he was an old man and rheumatism chained up his body, he would look back and blame the chains on evenings such as these, and on nights when he lost himself completely and fell asleep and didn't come to until morning, covered with dew.

The ground was almost soaked. The leaves seemed to soften the hard rain as it fell and it hit his body and face with no more power than the gentle tapping of fingers. He opened his mouth; it was rare for him and the rain to meet up like this. His eyes had remained open, and after taking in all that he could without turning his head, he took up his thing and did it. When he was done, after a few strokes, he closed his eyes, turned on his side and dozed. After a half hour or so the rain stopped abruptly ...

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Known World by Edward P. Jones
Copyright © 2003 by Edward P. Jones
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

First Chapter

The Known World LP

Chapter One

Liaison. The Warmth of Family.

Stormy Weather.

The evening his master died he worked again well after he ended the day for the other adults, his own wife among them, and sent them back with hunger and tiredness to their cabins. The young ones, his son among them, had been sent out of the fields an hour or so before the adults, to prepare the late supper and, if there was time enough, to play in the few minutes of sun that were left. When he, Moses, finally freed himself of the ancient and brittle harness that connected him to the oldest mule his master owned, all that was left of the sun was a five-inch-long memory of red orange laid out in still waves across the horizon between two mountains on the left and one on the right. He had been in the fields for all of fourteen hours. He paused before leaving the fields as the evening quiet wrapped itself about him. The mule quivered, wanting home and rest. Moses closed his eyes and bent down and took a pinch of the soil and ate it with no more thought than if it were a spot of cornbread. He worked the dirt around in his mouth and swallowed, leaning his head back and opening his eyes in time to see the strip of sun fade to dark blue and then to nothing. He was the only man in the realm, slave or free, who ate dirt, but while the bondage women, particularly the pregnant ones, ate it for some incomprehensible need, for that something that ash cakes and apples and fatback did not give their bodies, he ate it not only to discover the strengths and weaknesses of the field, but because the eating of it tied him to the only thing in his small world that meant almost as much as his own life.

The mule followed him, and after he had prepared the animal for the night and came out, Moses smelled the coming of rain. He breathed deeply, feeling it surge through him. Believing he was alone, he smiled. He knelt down to be closer to the earth and breathed deeply some more. Finally, when the effect began to dwindle, he stood and turned away, for the third time that week, from the path that led to the narrow lane of the quarters with its people and his own cabin, his woman and his boy. His wife knew enough now not to wait for him to come and eat with them. On a night with the moon he could see some of the smoke rising from the world that was the lane -- home and food and rest and what passed in many cabins for the life of family. He turned his head slightly to the right and made out what he thought was the sound of playing children, but when he turned his head back, he could hear far more clearly the last bird of the day as it evening-chirped in the small forest far off to the left.

Reading Group Guide

Introduction

Henry Townsend, a black farmer, bootmaker, and former slave, through the surprising twists and unforeseen turns of life in antebellum Virginia, becomes proprietor of his own plantation -- as well as his own slaves. Following his untimely death, Henry's widow Caldonia succumbs to profound grief, and their carefully-maintained plantation starts to come undone: slaves take to escaping under the cover of night, and families who had once found love and loyalty under the weight of slavery begin to betray one another. Beyond the Townsend household, the known world also unravels: low-paid white patrollers stand watch as slave "speculators" sell free black people into slavery, slaves and their masters chafe at the social confines of their relationships, and rumors of slave rebellions set white families against slaves who have served them for years.

The Known World seamlessly weaves the lives of the freed and the enslaved, whites, blacks, and Indians, and allows all of us a deeper understanding of the enduring multidimensional world created by the institution of slavery.

Questions for Discussion

Why is the character of Moses significant to the novel? How would you characterize his relationship with Henry and Caldonia Townsend? What about with his wife and child?
What is the significance of the title, The Known World? What "known world" is charted in John Skiffington's map in the jail? What world is charted in The Creation described by Calvin in his letter to his sister Caldonia? What role does the land and its borders play in this book?
Who is William Robbins and how does he impact the lives of blacks on neighboring plantations? Did you find his relationships with Henry, Augustus, and Mildred Townsend, and Philomena, Dora, and Louis compelling?
What is the significance of the Augustus Townsend character? In what ways is Augustus a victim of attitudes about slavery in the South? In what ways is he a victor? How did you respond to his captivity and its outcome?
How would you characterize Jebediah Dickinson? What explains his sudden appearance at the Elston farm? When Fern says of Jebediah: "With him there ... I feel as if I belong to him, that I am his property," what does she mean?
Were relationships between parents and children notably different during the era of slavery than in the present day? Consider Caldonia, Calvin, and Maude; William Robbins, Patience, and Dora; and Augustus, Mildred, and Henry in your evaluations.

About the Author

Edward P. Jones was born and raised in Washington, D.C. A recipient of the PEN/Hemingway Award, a Lannan Foundation Grant, and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, Jones was educated at Holy Cross College and earned his MFA at the University of Virginia. He has taught fiction at Princeton University, George Mason University, and the University of Maryland. His first book, Lost in the City, was short-listed for the National Book Award. Jones's work has appeared in numerous journals and magazines, including The Paris Review, Essence, and Ploughshares. He lives in Arlington, Virginia.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4

( 138 )

Rating Distribution

( 55 )
( 36 )
( 21 )
( 14 )
( 12 )

If you've bought this product, tell the world how you liked it.

Write a Review

Anonymous

Posted July 29, 2007

It's about slavery ... and it's about freedom

This book is about slavery and it is about freedom. There is a character, Alice, who we are told was 'kicked in the head by a mule' when she was younger. She chanted nonsense. She danced in the woods alone at night. People of the county thought she was crazy but, in the end, it turns out that Alice was not as crazy as people thought. The book tells of how people are sometimes able to escape the small worlds that hold them captive, a lesson for all of us as we all, at one time or another, have attempted to escape a small world of some kind, either a physical or mental prison that has confined us.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
regina77004

Posted October 13, 2009

more from this reviewer

What A Fascinating Subject

The Known World follows the family of a black slave owner and their associates. This subject has always fascinated me since briefly touching on this in college. Apparently there was a black slave owner in southeast Texas. I have heard mixed reviews on the writing style. Personally I enjoyed both the subject and story. Jones does seem to write in past, present, and future concurrently, which can be confusing. However, I found that it gave instant insight into the characters and motives without revealing the storyline too early. I felt the culture of the South and various races were well represented. I definitely recommend this book

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
llovelylady

Posted March 31, 2009

I Also Recommend:

A Must Read

I found this book to be not only thought provoking but compelling. This book was not an easy read but very well written. I felt empathy for the characters but you are left wondering how did certain events change their lives for ever. I will definitely be reading other books by this author.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Anonymous

Posted March 2, 2009

Sad Book

I did not like this book. I was surprised. The writing style was difficult to follow. It had important historical information, but I had trouble finishing it. It was a sad book.

2 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Black-Orchid

Posted July 26, 2009

more from this reviewer

Painfully MESMERIZING!

This book is an EXCELLENT pick for a book club! It raises several points for discussion... From the various perspectives regarding BLACK OWNED SLAVES to the personalities and life history of the characters, this book depicts another painful aspect of slavery worth talking about. Edward P. Jones is a FASCINATING STORYTELLER. I came to LOVE the way he shares the character's back-story. His writing style provides incredible INSIGHT into the motivations of his characters and invokes the emotion to love and hate and understand why! I must admit it was a tough read to start, but once I understood his style I was ENGROSSED to the end. I would RECOMMEND THIS BOOK to anyone looking for a thought provoking and GRIPPING novel.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Anonymous

Posted March 24, 2009

The Known World

V. Shipley

It is said that you should never judge a book by its cover, but when just glancing at the cover of The Known World, a person can't help but be interested. From the cover, it is obvious the book is about slavery, but one could never guess how twisted the subject of slavery can get.

The Known World is a story about slavery, not just the regular American slavery. The internal struggle of the book is really about the concept of free blacks owning slaves. Jones really plays with this theme through out the entire novel. He makes it seem as if he is unbiased on the subject throughout the book but his tone is otherwise. An atrocity occurs in everyone's life that owns a slave. The main theme of the book is anyone who participates in slavery is polluted by it and their concepts of justice and humanity become tainted.

The strange but yet awesome thing about the novel is that all of the characters are connected through a single character, Henry Townsend. Henry is a freed black, who was once a slave, which owns slaves. We are introduced to him in the beginning by learning about his death. He is not the only one. In the beginning Jones states, "In 1855 in Manchester Country, Virginia, there were 34 free black families. and eight of those free families owned slaves." Henry was a boot maker and was a slave for William Robbins. Robbins develops a fatherly bond with Henry and is reluctant to let him go. However, he remains close with him through out the entire novel.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading. History buffs would be especially interested because Jones gives you another side to a long complicated story. I had never even thought about blacks owning other slaves prior to the Civil war. This book will broaden any reader's horizons, as long as they are friendly.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Anonymous

Posted February 20, 2007

This is a beautiful and thoughtful book

Okay I know this book is long. I also know there isn't much action in this book either. With that being said this book made me think about the atrocities of slavery and the evil side of the human being. What Mr.Jones has created would not be considered exciting but what this book lacks in action it makes up for and surpesses in depth of characters and setting. Unless you really allow yourself to believe in the story than the many characters in this book won't matter and you will than miss out on some beautiful story telling. Mr. Jones takes a little fragment of history and manages to create his own world and his own masterpeice.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Anonymous

Posted November 14, 2006

A must read!

If you want something with substance and beautifully written, this is the book. The author writes with great imagery and I found myself fully engulfed in it. Not for those who are looking for something 'light'. If you want to read something good, this is it.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Anonymous

Posted September 2, 2005

an established and intelligent look into slavery--an American classic

I really liked Edward P. Jones' The Known World. I really didn't have a favorite character because the novel goes back and forth in time--the point being i got to know each charaster, bit by heartbreaking bit. I loved the way the novel brought so many stories together under the stronghold of slavery. There is an old slave named Stamford who chases around young girls. Moses the overseer satisfies himself by self-gratification in his spare time. (Yes, a story like this can be hilarious.)But yet there are paradoxes: Henry Townsend ,who the novel revolves around, is a black slave owner: John Skiffington is a sheriff that won't own slaves--well his cousin gave him a slave but he treats her as a daughter--but he enforces the slavery laws. There are people who act like they're white but they are not: Oden, the indian patroller and Fern, the English teacher. But there were chracters i wanted to get to know further--Augustus and Mildred Townsend, Henry's parents. Well to be honest I wanted to get to know everybody even further and didn't want to leave them alone at that last sentence.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
bullgog919

Posted January 17, 2012

too long and boring

I tried getting into this book... had it for three years and can not finish it.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
MaBrownWI

Posted October 31, 2011

Great for Discussion

I feel this is an important book, though it is not, in my opinion, particularly enticing. I found the flow of the story impeded by numerous side anecdotes and a tendency to jump from present to past and back. The well-developed characters in the book, however, could provide the basis for much good discussion beyond the obvious topic of slavery and the phenomena of freed slaves becoming slave owners themselves. Hence, I feel it would be a great book club selection.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
7022713

Posted August 9, 2011

Too much information

This book was filled with too much information for readers to absorb. Often confusing, as it jumped from the present to the past, and back again. Constantly implementing tedious "mini stories" into what was to be a plot....
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
JHBNJ

Posted November 17, 2010

I am not one to quit reading a book.........

but I had the hardest time following this one I just gave up.
The names alone had my head spinning.
I keep saying I am going to try again but I just cant.
My sister in law finished it and liked it but she wrote all the names of the characters on a piece of paper to follow with. Too much work for me to read a book and do that.............
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
tchrreader

Posted May 30, 2010

Oprah thought it was great, I thought it was okay!

I thought this book had great potential. I liked it but didn't love it. Oprah said it was the best book she has ever read?! Hummm... I thought it was an okay book. This book is about slavery and a man named Henry Townsend, a black farmer and a former slave. This story was a look at slavery from many different perspectives. I thought the book was a bit hard to follow. I didn't know that there was a family tree in the back of the book until after I read it. The family tree would have been helpful early on. I was more interested in some characters a lot more than others.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Stormy60

Posted December 6, 2009

more from this reviewer

I Also Recommend:

The Known World, The Way to Freedom

"Master Dead Master Dead," said Alice. Edward P. Jones, winner of the Pulitzer Price, wrote The Known World. This story revolves around the day master Henry Townsend a former black man, who owns slaves, dies and then travels back into time where it all began. This story is based in the 19 century in Manchester County, Virginia had way too many characters, kept skipping around, and was a very long dry book that was trying to get the idea out of black's owning slaves, and revolving around death.
Far too much is being said, in this 388 page novel. It all revolves around one of the main characters death Henry Townsend who was born into slavery, and his father will eventually buy his freedom. He will become a black master and own slaves with the help of his old master William Robbins. The story starts off really fast, and within the first fifty pages or so you are introduced to so many characters. It becomes really hard to understand for one could even get lost. The author Edward P. Jones never really reveals the characters in depth. In my opinion, some of the characters are mention in the novel, and they really had no reason to be in the novel in the first place. Each character has their own story that gets mentioned in the book. It gets really hard to follow, and the book itself is really dull.
Next, The Known World through out the book had many flashbacks. In my opinion it made it very confusing to try to read. For example, it would talk about Henry Townsend's funeral in one paragraph, and a paragraph later it would be talking about the past. This is not a type of book I personally enjoy reading. For some positive remarks, the book had some historical events, which made it quite interesting. It talked about how black people could own black slaves as their own property, and how black slaves really weren't treated well. The Known World really did have a good message, but I just wished the author had told the story in sequential order. It would have made it a lot easier to follow, more enjoyable, and would have made more sense.
After all I strongly believe reading this book was like watching paint dry. It took so long to read, because you had to reread the paragraph over and over to finally understand what was happening. It is not a book I would recommend to many people. I would only recommend this book to adults. You really have to enjoy books with flashbacks and have time to sit and read a book with so much detail. In the book it talks about Henry Townsend dying, his death, his funeral, and the past with all the characters.
Overall, The Known World by Edward P. Jones wasn't the book for me. Many other people have enjoyed this fictional novel though. Like Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World, said "Extraordinary..The best new work of American fiction to cross my desk in years." So many eyes have different opinion in books they read. Edward P. Jones was trying to get the idea out to the readers how blacks could own slaves, and it all revolved on the death of Henry Townsend. The Known World did have way too many characters, it kept skipping around, and was a very long dry book based in the 19 century. This book just wasn't for me, but that doesn't mean it's not for you.

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
JR3085

Posted November 2, 2009

more from this reviewer

Truly a heartfelt emotional read

This story tells a side of slavery in America that is not told or taught by college black history professors. A powerful read that made me miss a few appointments because I simply could not put it down.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Anonymous

Posted July 10, 2008

do not take the time to read it!

How this book won an award is amazing to me. I am a very avid reader and it took me three years to finish this book. The concept is facinating and could make for a great book if the following things happened: Less jumping around and more focus on specific characters, it was hard to relate to anyone when a paragraph later you were someone else in the book. Way too long and long winded, for concept to work it needed to be about a hundred pages less and more to the point of the actual plot. Place more action closer to the first two hundred pages so readers will actually want to finish the book. The author is talented but just seems to have lost direction or an exact plot in this book. I expected so much more and was let down.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Anonymous

Posted April 27, 2008

overrated

i expected that this book is really great with the praises and all, but personally when I read it, it kind of bored me it's too long yet nothing exciting happend that really made me attach to the book, but from the chapters that i've read because im still finishing it 'sigh' the theme of the book which is slavery and freedom is really showing
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Anonymous

Posted March 30, 2007

I was expecting much more

I was expecting much more but found it was very boring for long parts. I kept reading hoping the book would redeem itself but that never happened. While some parts were interesting, the book could have sent the same message with half the pages which would have moved the book along at a more interesting pace.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Anonymous

Posted February 4, 2007

Boring

This is one of the very few books that I found myself not wanting to finish-and I am talking about a list of about three or four books. I read 1 to 4 books each week, so I am sorry to say this is quite boring.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

If you find inappropriate content, please report it to Barnes & Noble

The Known World

Pick Up in Store

Available on NOOK devices and apps

All Available Formats + Editions

Customers Who Bought This Also Bought

More About This Book

Overview

Related Subjects

Editorial Reviews

QBR-The Black Book Review

From The Critics

Product Details

Meet the Author

Edward P. Jones

Biography

Good To Know

Read an Excerpt

The Known World

Harper Collins Publishers

Chapter One

Liaison. The Warmth of Family.

First Chapter

Chapter One

Liaison. The Warmth of Family.

Reading Group Guide

Rating Distribution

It's about slavery ... and it's about freedom

What A Fascinating Subject

A Must Read

Sad Book

Painfully MESMERIZING!

The Known World

This is a beautiful and thoughtful book

A must read!

an established and intelligent look into slavery--an American classic

too long and boring

Great for Discussion

Too much information

I am not one to quit reading a book.........

Oprah thought it was great, I thought it was okay!

The Known World, The Way to Freedom

Truly a heartfelt emotional read

do not take the time to read it!

overrated

I was expecting much more

Boring