Clotel

by William Wells Brown

Overview

First published in 1853 amidst rumors that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with one of his slaves, Clotel is a fictional chronicle of one such child. After Jefferson's death, his mistress and her two daughters are auctioned. One daughter, Clotel, is purchased by a white man from Virginia who impregnates her. Despite the promise of marriage, Clotel is instead sold to another man and separated from her daughter. After escaping from the slave dealer, Clotel returnss to Virginia to reunite with her daughter - now a slave in her father's house.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781974999774
Publisher:	Dreamscape Media
Publication date:	01/23/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	241
File size:	421 KB
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

William Wells Brown (1814 - 1884) was born a slave in Kentucky. In 1834, he he escaped to Ohio before moving to New York, and later, Great Britain. His novel, Clotel, is widely recognized as the first to be written by an African-American.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
William Wells Brown: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text

Clotel; or, The President’s Daughter

Appendix A: Contemporary Reviews

1. “Clotel,” Hereford Times (17 December 1853)
2. “Clotel,” Pennsylvania Freeman (29 December 1853)
3. “W.W. Brown’s New Work,” National Anti-Slavery Standard (31 December 1853)
4. “Clotel,” Anti-Slavery Advocate (January 1854)
5. “Clotel,” Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine 21 (January 1854)
6. “Clotel,” Bristol Mercury (28 January 1854)
7. [William Lloyd Garrison,] “New Work by William Wells Brown,” Liberator (3 February 1854)

Appendix B: Slave-Auction Scenes

1. From [William Lloyd Garrison,] “A Scene at New Orleans,” Liberator (21 September 1838)
2. H.S.D., “An Auction,” National Anti-Slavery Standard (20 March 1845)
3. “Slave Auction Scene,” Anti-Slavery Reporter (1 December 1846)
4. From “The Case of Two Slave Girls,” Christian Watchman (2 November 1848)
5. From “Visit to a Slave Auction,” Frederick Douglass' Paper (2 February 1855)

Appendix C: The Aesthetic of Attractions

1. From [Gamaliel Bailey,] “Popular Amusements in New York” National Era (15 April 1847)
2. “Mechanical Museum—Lafayette Bazaar,” New York Evening Post (22 December 1847)
3. From “Banvard’s Panorama of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers,” Illustrated London News (9 December 1848)
4. From George Washington Bungay, Crayon Sketches and Off-Hand Takings (1852)

Appendix D: Brown and His Audiences

1. From “The Anniversaries,” New York Herald (9 May 1849)
2. From “Address from W.W. Brown, an Escaped Slave,” Norfolk News (4 May 1850)
3. From “Third Anniversary of the New York Anti-Slavery Society,” National Anti-Slavery Standard (16 May 1856)
4. From “Speech of William Wells Brown,” National Anti-Slavery Standard (26 May 1860)

Appendix E: Plagiarism

1. From [James Frederick Ferrier,] “The Plagiarisms of S.T. Coleridge,” Blackwood’s Magazine 47 (March 1840)
2. From “Plagiarism,” New-York Mirror (15 January 1842)
3. Untitled article, Caledonian Mercury (18 November 1852)
4. From untitled article, London Times (22 November 1852)
5. From “Stop Thief!” Fife Herald (25 November 1852)
6. From William Wells Brown, “Letter from William W. Brown,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper (10 June 1853)
7. From Thomas Montgomery, Literary Societies, Their Uses and Abuses (1853)
8. From “Plagiarism: Especially That of Coleridge,” Eclectic Magazine 32 (August 1854)

Select Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

Exquisitely curated with appropriate supporting documents and furnished with an expert introduction, Geoffrey Sanborn’s edition of William Wells Brown’s Clotel will prove to be a welcome text to students and generalists interested in the literature and history of chattel slavery in the US, as well as to specialists working in African-American Studies.” — Ivy Wilson, Northwestern University

“Geoffrey Sanborn’s edition of Clotel offers readers a clear understanding of its richness, complexity, and value to American literature. In a lucid introduction that allows us to understand Brown’s work in relation to his contemporaries, and in meticulously researched notes and appendices, Sanborn invites twenty-firstcentury audiences to experience the pleasure and power of Clotel.” — Tess Chakkalakal, Bowdoin College

From the Publisher