Three Years in Europe/Preface

While I feel conscious that most of the contents of these Letters will be interesting chiefly to American readers, yet I may indulge the hope, that the fact of their being the first production of a Fugitive Slave, as a history of travels, may carry with them novelty enough to secure for them, to some extent, the attention of the reading public of Great Britain. Most of the letters were written for the private perusal of a few personal friends in America; some were contributed to "Frederick Douglass's paper," a journal published in the United States. In a printed circular sent some weeks since to some of my friends, asking subscriptions to this volume, I stated the reasons for its publication: these need not be repeated here. To those who so promptly and kindly responded to that appeal, I tender my most sincere thanks. It is with no little diffidence that I lay these letters before the public; for I am not blind to the fact, that they must contain many errors; and to those who shall find fault with them on that account, it may not be too much for me to ask them kindly to remember, that the author was a slave in one of the Southern States of America, until he had attained the age of twenty years; and that the education he has acquired, was by his own exertions, he never having had a day's schooling in his life. W. WELLS BROWN. 22, CECIL STREET, STRAND, LONDON.