Brown, William Wells: Narrative of William W. Brown. v1 2 October 2018
 

William Wells Brown, 1814?-1884, was born into slavery in Kentucky to a negro mother and a relative of their white owner, but escaped in 1834 to live in Boston and in Europe where he worked as an abolitionist. He returned to the U.S.A. in 1854 after an English family had purchased his freedom. He is thought to have been the first African American novelist.

The book contains a commendatory letter from Edmund Quincy (1808–1877), vice-president of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1853 and 1856-1859. J. C. Hathaway, a Quaker abolitionist, provided the Preface, but his date of death is unknown. Given that the book was first printed in 1846 one presumes that his work is in the public domain.

The book went through several editions and is an outline of the author's life as a slave, and of the work he did as a free man to liberate others. Many of the events described were used in his other books.