The Stockwell Letters

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.

Author: Jacqueline Friedland

Pub Date: August 29, 2023

Categories: ,

Description

“Jacqueline Friedland is a gifted writer with an incredible ability to tell a gripping, page-turning story in any genre . . . . Friedland’s impeccable research and compelling characters immersed me in the period . . . . Even if you don’t usually gravitate towards historical fiction, this one will have you hooked from the outset. It’s just that good!”
—Samantha Greene Woodruff, best-selling author of The Lobotomist’s Wife

“A riveting portrait of the women who risked everything to help usher slaves to freedom, Jacqueline Friedland’s latest is told with a tender heart. Thanks to a cast of captivating characters, colorful period details and an ending that will have you cheering, the book will stay with you long after you finish. The Stockwell Letters is book club fiction at its best.”
—Brooke Foster, award-winning journalist and author of On Gin Lane

The Stockwells Letters is an immersive work of fiction that plunges readers into one of the most fraught and urgent decades of American history. With assiduous research and a cast of complex and finely rendered characters, Friedland delivers a powerful literary punch. Showing both the best and the worst of human nature, Friedland’s writing prompts every reader to ask: How can I stand up for what is right?”
—Allison Pataki, author of The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post

Impressively researched, seamlessly written and deeply felt, The Stockwell Letters brings the abolitionist movement fully and completely to life. Friedland is an expert at showing us the motivations behind the actions; this is historical fiction at its very best.
—Kitty Zeldis, author of The Dressmakers of Prospect Heights

“The Stockwell Letters is a novel that would draw me from all the way across a crowded bookstore, because not only am I fascinated with the abolitionist era, it has so much resonance for our time. This is an immersive, human, important novel that everybody should read!”
—Jenna Blum, New York Times bestselling author of Those Who Save Us and The Lost Family

About the Author

Jacqueline Friedland is the USA Today best-selling and multi-award-winning author of He Gets That From Me, That’s Not a Thing, and Trouble the Water. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and NYU Law School, she practiced briefly as a commercial litigator in Manhattan and taught Legal Writing and Lawyering Skills at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law. She returned to school after not too long in the legal world, earning her Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. Jacqueline regularly reviews fiction for trade publications and appears as a guest lecturer. When not writing, she loves to exercise, watch movies with her family, listen to music, make lists, and dream about exotic vacations. She lives in Westchester, New York, with her husband, four children, and two very lovable dogs.

Title

Go to Top