The Editor is conscious that the following Narrative has only its truthfulness to recommend it to favourable consideration. It is nothing more than it purports to be, namely; a plain, unvarnished tale of real Slave-life, conveyed as nearly as possible in the language of the subject of it, and written under his dictation. It would have been easy to fill up the outline of the picture here and there, with dark shadows, and to impart a heightened dramatic colouring to some of the incidents; but he preferred allowing the narrator to speak for himself, and the various events recorded to tell their own tale. He believes few persons will peruse it unmoved; or arise from a perusal of it without feeling an increased abborrence of the inhuman system under which, at this hour, in the United States of America alone, three millions and a half of men, women, and children, are held as "chattels personal," by thirty-seven thousand and fifty-five individuals, many of them professing Ministers of the Gospel, and defenders of "the peculiar institution."

Recounts the life and later escape of John Brown (approximately 1810-1876), a Black man enslaved in Georgia from the age of ten after being torn from his mother. Brown details the physical abuse and human experimentation he endured at the hands to two plantation owners for over 15 years. After several attempts, he finally managed to escape north, taking the name John Brown in place of his slave name, "Fed." After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, Brown sailed to England and worked as a carpenter. In 1855, he dictated his memoir to Louis Chamerovzow, Secretary of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. He remained in England and later married, working as an herbalist until his death in 1876. (Adapted from Wikipedia, viewed February 21, 2023)