A narrative of the life of the author of the present work has been most
extensively circulated in England and America. The present memoir will,
therefore, simply comprise a brief sketch of the most interesting
portion of Mr. Brown's history while in America, together with a short
account of his subsequent cisatlantic career. The publication of his
adventures as a slave, and as a fugitive from slavery in his native
land, has been most valuable in sustaining a sound anti-slavery spirit
in Great Britain. His honourable reception in Europe may be equally
serviceable in America, as another added to the many practical protests
previously entered from this side of the Atlantic, against the absolute
bondage of three millions and a quarter of the human race, and the
semi-slavery involved in the social and political proscription of
600,000 free coloured people in that country.

William Wells Brown was born at Lexington, in the state of Kentucky, as
nearly as he can tell in the autumn of 1814. In the Southern States of
America, the pedigree and age of a horse or a dog are carefully
preserved, but no record is kept of the birth of a slave. All that Mr.
Brown knows upon the subject is traditionally, that he was born "about
corn-cutting time" of that year. His mother was a slave named Elizabeth,
the property of Dr. Young, a physician. His father was George Higgins, a
relative of his master.

The name given to our author at his birth, was "William"--no second or
surname being permitted to a slave. While William was an infant, Dr.
Young removed to Missouri, where, in addition to his profession as a
physician, he carried on the--to European notions--incongruous
avocations of miller, merchant, and farmer. Here William was employed as