SOURCE: “A Mighty Pen,” in My Chains Fell Off: William Wells Brown, Fugitive Abolitionist, New York: University Press of America, 1985, pp. 45-50.

In the following essay, Whelchel provides a summary of Brown's first novel, Clotel, interpreting Brown's purpose as both entertaining and political.

William Wells Brown's commitment to the struggle for freedom and equality for the blacks was a consuming passion that found expression, not alone in effort to effect his goals through legislation and political activity. He expressed himself, as well, in the idiom of literature.

Brown continued his relentless endeavor to crusade against slavery through writing novels and plays. He is recognized as the first black American male to publish a novel and a play. His first novel entitled Clotel, or The President's Daughter, was published in 1853, and a revised version, called Clotelle: A Tale of the Southern States, was published in 1864. In his original version...