Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw

Published in 1836, this novel with its radical anti-slavery message is one of the key texts in the history of the abolition of slavery in the United States. It pre-dates Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by more than 15 years and is said to have influenced the later writer in her work. Unjustly neglected and out of print for many years, it tells a powerful tale of the maltreatment of slaves in the South and the passionate hatred that emerges between those whose fortunes depend on the continued suffering of the slaves they own and those who are trying to fight against the trade.