born 1814?, near Lexington, Ky., U.S.
died Nov. 6, 1884, Chelsea, Mass.
U.S. writer.
Born into slavery, Brown escaped and educated himself, settling in the Boston area. He wrote a popular autobiography, Narrative of William W. Brown, A Fugitive Slave (1847), and lectured on abolitionism and temperance reform. Clotel (1853), his only novel, concerning the descendants of Thomas Jefferson and a slave, was the first novel ever published by an African American. His only play, The Escape (1858), is about two slaves who secretly marry.