The Known World LPWinner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize Award and recognized as the best book of fiction in the 21st century by the New York Times, Edward P. Jones's The Known World is a debut novel of stunning emotional depth and unequaled literary power and continues to show its importance to the American literary canon. Henry Townsend, a farmer, boot maker, and former slave, through the surprising twists and unforeseen turns of life in antebellum Virginia, becomes proprietor of his own plantation--as well his own slaves. When he dies, his widow Caldonia succumbs to profound grief, and things begin to fall apart at their plantation: slaves take to escaping under the cover of night, and families who had once found love under the weight of slavery begin to betray one another. Beyond the Townsend household, the known world also unravels: low-paid white patrollers stand watch as slave "speculators" sell free black people into slavery, and rumors of slave rebellions set white families against slaves who have served them for years. An ambitious, courageous, luminously written masterwork, The Known World seamlessly weaves the lives of the freed and the enslaved--and allows all of us a deeper understanding of the enduring multidimensional world created by the institution of slavery. The Known World not only marks the return of an extraordinarily gifted writer, it heralds the publication of a remarkable contribution to the canon of American classic literature. |
Contents
Section 24 | 325 |
Section 25 | 344 |
Section 26 | 356 |
Section 27 | 362 |
Section 28 | 365 |
Section 29 | 375 |
Section 30 | 380 |
Section 31 | 399 |
Section 9 | 87 |
Section 10 | 107 |
Section 11 | 111 |
Section 12 | 148 |
Section 13 | 150 |
Section 14 | 154 |
Section 15 | 198 |
Section 16 | 215 |
Section 17 | 226 |
Section 18 | 235 |
Section 19 | 244 |
Section 20 | 260 |
Section 21 | 286 |
Section 22 | 302 |
Section 23 | 321 |
Section 32 | 413 |
Section 33 | 434 |
Section 34 | 439 |
Section 35 | 460 |
Section 36 | 472 |
Section 37 | 479 |
Section 38 | 480 |
Section 39 | 487 |
Section 40 | 495 |
Section 41 | 507 |
Section 42 | 520 |
Section 43 | 546 |
Section 44 | 551 |
Section 45 | 555 |