William W. BrownWilliam Wells Brown (c. 1814 – November 6, 1884) was an abolitionist, author, playwright, and historian from the United States. Brown, who was born into slavery at Mount Sterling, Kentucky, escaped to Ohio at the age of 19 in 1834. He settled in Boston, Massachusetts, and became a prolific writer while working for abolitionist causes. Brown also supported temperance, women's suffrage, pacifism, prison reform, and an anti-tobacco movement while pushing for abolition. Clotel (1853), widely regarded as the first novel written by an African American, was first published in London, England, where he was living at the time; it was afterwards published in the United States. Brown was a trailblazer in a variety of literary genres, including travel writing, fiction, and theater. He was the first published African-American playwright in 1858, and he frequently read from his work on the lecture circuit. Following the Civil War, he published the first history of African Americans in the Revolutionary War in 1867. He was one of the first writers to be admitted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame, which was created in 2013. In Lexington, Kentucky, a public school was named for him. Read More Read Less