Introduction

From USA Today best-selling and multi-award-winning author Jacqueline Friedland comes a gripping work of fiction based on the true story of female abolitionist Ann Phillips and her connection to Anthony Burns, a young man who briefly escaped American slavery and rocked the nation with his astoundingly heroic story.

A passionate advocate of abolition from her earliest years, Ann’s activism was derailed just before her twenty-fourth birthday, when she fell sick with a mysterious illness. In order to protect her fragile health, her husband, the famous abolitionist Wendell Phillips, forbade her from joining any further anti-slavery outings. Even so, when fugitive slave Anthony Burns is apprehended in Boston, Ann is determined to help him, no matter what it costs her.

With a particular focus on the predicament of nineteenth-century women who wanted to effect change despite the restrictions society imposed on them, The Stockwell Letters takes a deep dive into the harrowing conditions of the antebellum South and the obstacles faced by abolitionists who fought tirelessly to eradicate slavery. A fast-paced, arresting recounting of America’s not-so-distant history, the story will stay with readers long after the final page.

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Excerpt

ANTHONY
Richmond, February 1854

The lamplighter had long since fired up the streetlights by the time Anthony made his way back along 13th Street toward Millspaugh’s Apothecary. It was well after the close of business, so he had to rap solid against the glass with his knuckles to be let in. His skin was cut and rubbed from the day hauling coal and guano down at the docks, but he was upbeat anyhow, fixing to show Master Millspaugh the twenty-five dollars he had in his pocket. The wages he’d collected over the past fortnight were sure to be more than the man was expecting. It was money enough to prove that the arrangement they’d settled on was for the best. The apothecary had made a mistake leasing Anthony from Master Charles for the year when he didn’t have near enough customers to keep an extra worker busy. But now the druggist’s error had Anthony getting two weeks at a time to be in charge of his own self. ... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

From the author:

1. Why do you think the author chose to tell this story from three different points of view?

2. What parallels do you see in the story between the 1850s and present-day America?

3. What does this book say about hierarchies in our society? Who is beholden to whom?

4. Looking at the past with the benefit of hindsight, do you think Wendell and his peers made the right choices when it came to Anthony's case? Is there anything they should have done differently?

5. Discuss the symbolism of Colette's house versus Ann's house.

6. Had you ever heard of Anthony Burns before? What about Wendell Phillips? Why do you think that is?

7. Why does McDaniel ultimately decide to go along with the requests of the mysterious Reverend Stockwell?

8. What is the significance of religion and the church in the story?

9. What message do you think the author wants us to take from the novel?

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