Books with author John Russell Russell (Earl)

It is one of the least commonly known facts about the Civil War: there were many, many free negroes living in slaveholding states before the Emancipation Proclamation. This monograph on that surprising reality, originally published in 1913, draws on such firsthand documents as court records, contemporary literature and newspaper accounts, and other sources to create the first such portrait of this nearly forgotten chapter of African-American history. From the various origins of the "free negro" classes to their legal and social statuses-regarding everything from their right of travel to their relationship with their enslaved fellows-this "should supply some of the facts upon which the history of the negro race in the United States must be based," wrote author JOHN HENDERSON RUSSELL (b. 1884) in his preface.

More genius is displayed in this work than we have seen in any other single volume since the publication of Childe Harold. Although entirely different in form, it is, like that magnificent poem, a discursive philosophical essay; but, while Byron cast his glowing thoughts in the mould of Spenser, our anonymous author has clothed his ideas in the nervous prose of the best old English writers. Unfortunately, at the same time that he emulates the power of his prototypes, he does not abate a jot of the prolixity which has caused their works to be less frequently read than they are quoted. Precious literary fragments, like samples of rich ore, are seen and admired, but mankind in general are too busy or too idle to explore the mines from which such brilliant specimens are extracted....

More genius is displayed in this work than we have seen in any other single volume since the publication of Childe Harold. Although entirely different in form, it is, like that magnificent poem, a discursive philosophical essay; but, while Byron cast his glowing thoughts in the mould of Spenser, our anonymous author has clothed his ideas in the nervous prose of the best old English writers. Unfortunately, at the same time that he emulates the power of his prototypes, he does not abate a jot of the prolixity which has caused their works to be less frequently read than they are quoted. Precious literary fragments, like samples of rich ore, are seen and admired, but mankind in general are too busy or too idle to explore the mines from which such brilliant specimens are extracted....

More genius is displayed in this work than we have seen in any other single volume since the publication of Childe Harold. Although entirely different in form, it is, like that magnificent poem, a discursive philosophical essay; but, while Byron cast his glowing thoughts in the mould of Spenser, our anonymous author has clothed his ideas in the nervous prose of the best old English writers. Unfortunately, at the same time that he emulates the power of his prototypes, he does not abate a jot of the prolixity which has caused their works to be less frequently read than they are quoted. Precious literary fragments, like samples of rich ore, are seen and admired, but mankind in general are too busy or too idle to explore the mines from which such brilliant specimens are extracted....