{"id":37522,"date":"2014-09-29T20:42:37","date_gmt":"2014-09-29T20:42:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=37522"},"modified":"2020-06-26T03:07:15","modified_gmt":"2020-06-26T03:07:15","slug":"clotel-or-the-presidents-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=37522","title":{"rendered":"Clotel or, The President\u2019s Daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clotel or, The President\u2019s Daughter<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Penguin Press<\/a>
\n2003-12-30 (First published in December 1853)
\n320 Pages
\nPaperback ISBN: 9780142437728
\nePub ISBN: 9781440626616<\/p>\n

William Wells Brown<\/a> (1814\u20131884)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Introduction by:<\/p>\n

M. Giulia Fabi<\/strong>, Associate professor of American literature
\nUniversity of Ferrara, Italy<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\" \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

First published in December 1853, Clotel<\/em> was written amid then unconfirmed rumors that Thomas Jefferson<\/a> had fathered children with one of his slaves<\/a>. The story begins with the auction of his mistress, here called Currer, and their two daughters, Clotel and Althesa. The Virginian who buys Clotel falls in love with her, gets her pregnant, seems to promise marriage\u2014then sells her. Escaping from the slave dealer, Clotel returns to Virginia<\/a> disguised as a white man in order to rescue her daughter, Mary, a slave in her father\u2019s house. A fast-paced and harrowing tale of slavery and freedom, of the hypocrisies of a nation founded on democratic principles, Clotel<\/em> is more than a sensationalist novel. It is a founding text of the African American novelistic tradition, a brilliantly composed and richly detailed exploration of human relations in a new world in which race is a cultural construct.<\/p>\n