Lockard (English, Arizona State U.) presents travel accounts, fiction, poetry, and legal text to analyze direct and indirect encounters of slavery in the antebellum United States. The publication's five chapters each address different areas: chapter one examines Thackeray's identification with the "slaveocracy" and its relationship with his hidden family history in India, as well as Dickens' American Notes for General Circulation and his refusal to travel deep into slave territory during his lecture tours. Chapter two delves into the fiction and 1834-1835 travel narrative of Harriet Martineau, and chapter three studies the poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier. The fourth chapter examines the shifting legal opinions of U.S. Supreme Court justice Joseph Story, the chief architect of the 1842 Prigg v. Pennsylvania decision. The concluding chapter explores the practical work and narrative of William Still, who aided runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad and recorded many of their stories while doing so. With the exception of the final chapter, each topic addresses the white imagination or construction of the black slavery experience. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
