The Known World

Description

E-Book exclusive extras: "Inside The Known World: An Interview with Edward P. Jones"; Reading Group GuideHenry Townsend, a black farmer, bootmaker, and former slave, has a fondness for Paradise Lost and an unusual mentor -- William Robbins, perhaps the most powerful man in antebellum Virginia's Manchester County. Under Robbins's tutelage, Henry becomes proprietor of his own plantation -- as well as of his own slaves. When he dies, his widow, Caldonia, succumbs to profound grief, and things begin to fall apart at their plantation: slaves take to escaping under the cover of night, and families who had once found love beneath the weight of slavery begin to betray one another. Beyond the Townsend estate, the known world also unravels: low-paid white patrollers stand watch as slave "speculators" sell free black people into slavery, and rumors of slave rebellions set white families against slaves who have served them for years.An ambitious, luminously written novel that ranges seamlessly between the past and future and back again to the present, The Known World weaves together the lives of freed and enslaved blacks, whites, and Indians -- and allows all of us a deeper understanding of the enduring multidimensional world created by the institution of slavery.

First Sentence

The evening his master died he worked again well after he ended the day for the other adults, his own wife among them, and sent them back with hunger and tiredness to their cabins.

Subjects

Other Editions

• The Known WorldAmistad2006-08-29
• The known worldAmistad2003-01-01
• The Known WorldElectronic resourceHarperCollins2003-01-01
• The known worldAmistad2003-01-01
• Known WorldHarperCollins Publishers2003-01-01
• The Known WorldpaperbackAmistad / HarperCollins2003-01-12