New details about author William Wells Brown's life found by Texas professor
Ezra Greenspan, English professor at SMU's Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, discovers new details about the author William Wells Brown, the first and most prolific black writer published in the 19th century.
By Tom Eblen
"I was born in Lexington, Ky."
That is the first sentence of the first chapter of the first manuscript published by William Wells Brown, the first and most prolific black writer published in the 19th century. And it appears to be wrong.
Rather than being born in Lexington — as Brown might have believed when he wrote the 1847 narrative of his life in and escape from slavery — he was born on a Montgomery County farm near Mount Sterling.
That is one of several discoveries Ezra Greenspan, an English professor at Southern Methodist University in Texas, has made as he has researched and written the first comprehensive biography of Brown.
Greenspan is now finishing the book, which he said W.W. Norton & Co. will publish in 2014. Also next year, The Library of America will publish the second volume of Brown's writings that Greenspan has edited. William Wells Brown: A Reader was published by The University of Georgia Press in 2008.
"He is one of the great lives in American history," Greenspan said of Brown. "He is being recognized now, and it's long overdue, as being the leading force in 19th-century African-American culture."...
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/02/20/4076687/new-details-about-author-william.html#storylink=cpy