The Known World (Paperback)

~ I. Lehiste & P. Ivic (Author) "The evening his master died he worked again well after he ended the day for the other adults, his own wife among them, and sent..." (more)
Key Phrases: dead master dead master, boardinghouse woman, nigger side, William Robbins, John Skiffington, North Carolina (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Set in Manchester County, Virginia, 20 years before the Civil War began, Edward P. Jones's debut novel, The Known World, is a masterpiece of overlapping plot lines, time shifts, and heartbreaking details of life under slavery. Caldonia Townsend is an educated black slaveowner, the widow of a well-loved young farmer named Henry, whose parents had bought their own freedom, and then freed their son, only to watch him buy himself a slave as soon as he had saved enough money. Although a fair and gentle master by the standards of the day, Henry Townsend had learned from former master about the proper distance to keep from one's property. After his death, his slaves wonder if Caldonia will free them. When she fails to do so, but instead breaches the code that keeps them separate from her, a little piece of Manchester County begins to unravel. Impossible to rush through, The Known World is a complex, beautifully written novel with a large cast of characters, rewarding the patient reader with unexpected connections, some reaching into the present day. --Regina Marler

From Publishers Weekly

In a crabbed, powerful follow-up to his National Book Award-nominated short story collection (Lost in the City), Jones explores an oft-neglected chapter of American history, the world of blacks who owned blacks in the antebellum South. His fictional examination of this unusual phenomenon starts with the dying 31-year-old Henry Townsend, a former slave-now master of 33 slaves of his own and more than 50 acres of land in Manchester County, Va.-worried about the fate of his holdings upon his early death. As a slave in his youth, Henry makes himself indispensable to his master, William Robbins. Even after Henry's parents purchase the family's freedom, Henry retains his allegiance to Robbins, who patronizes him when he sets up shop as a shoemaker and helps him buy his first slaves and his plantation. Jones's thorough knowledge of the legal and social intricacies of slaveholding allows him to paint a complex, often startling picture of life in the region. His richest characterizations-of Robbins and Henry-are particularly revealing. Though he is a cruel master to his slaves, Robbins is desperately in love with a black woman and feels as much fondness for Henry as for his own children; Henry, meanwhile, reads Milton, but beats his slaves as readily as Robbins does. Henry's wife, Caldonia, is not as disciplined as her husband, and when he dies, his worst fears are realized: the plantation falls into chaos. Jones's prose can be rather static and his phrasings ponderous, but his narrative achieves crushing momentum through sheer accumulation of detail, unusual historical insight and generous character writing.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 388 pages
• Publisher: Michigan Slavic Publications; 1st edition (August 14, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060557540
• ISBN-13: 978-0060557546
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (307 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #233,253 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 17 in The Today Show Book Club Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

267 of 275 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intelligent, thoughtful, and utterly compelling, September 12, 2003

By	Candace "thepageturner" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Edward P. Jones tackles a difficult subject with depth and courage. Unlike other reviews listed here, I did not find his prose difficult, but enjoyed its richness and color, and found "The Known World" filled with flawed and genuine people of all races who grapple with slavery-America's "peculiar institution"-in a way that will surprise and compel readers.

Mourners come to Manchester County, Virginia to bury Henry Townsend and comfort his widow Caldonia. Henry was only 31 years old, a successful landowner and the owner of 33 slaves. He was also black, and a former slave himself. His human property learned from the start that working for a black master was no different from working for a white-or an Indian, for that matter. But they hold out the tiniest shred of hope that Caldonia, who was born free, will free them.

Henry's father Augustus bought his own freedom from his owner, Bill Robbins. He then worked to buy his wife, and then his son. But Henry always felt more affinity with Robbins than he did with his own family, shocking his parents when he buys his first slave. There are a number of black and Cherokee slave owners in the area who look on slaves with perhaps even more dispassionate eyes than do their white neighbors. "The legacy," Henry's mother-in-law calls his slaves when Caldonia briefly considers manumitting them. "Don't throw away the legacy."

I have never found a book that looks at slavery like "The Known World" does. Throw your preconceived notions out the window and be prepared to be completely pulled into a world where, no matter the characters' race, nothing is black and white.

232 of 241 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly a Book for Every Thoughtful Person, August 15, 2004

By	O. Brown "Ms. O. Khannah-Brown" (Twopeas, WA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Known World: A Novel (Paperback)

*****
The Known World was unique among fiction books I have read in the last twenty years or so. It was a thoroughly enjoyable read. I would not call it an easy read, because it was some work to keep track of all of the different characters, but nevertheless, so very well worth it. Despite the work, it was entertaining. Like other reviewers, it kept me up at night, and kept me reading.

The book caused me to wonder how I would behave had I the same cultural background as the various characters in the book---the white slave owners, black slave owners, the black slaves. I had always thought before that I "of course" would be against slavery, would fight for rights for all races, and absolutely never do anything so repulsive as to own slaves. I wondered how anyone ever could! The Known World opened my eyes to how this could happen, and how easily one of those slaveowners---black or white---could have been me. Or how easily I could have been a slave. It also provided insight into the psychological world of the slave. All of this was done by showing, not telling, so the reading was more of a powerful emotional experience rather than an intellectual experience.

What made this so different for me is that I picked this book soley upon the Amazon reviews and rankings. I had no inherent interest in American history or race relations or the Civil War era, but this book GOT me interested. I think that the only person who would not enjoy this book would be the person who is not open or interested in challenging themselves, not interested in thinking, or afraid to find out about or explore the dark side of the human experience.

Because of the complexity of the book, as far as the feelings of the characters, the layers of meaning, and the strong impact, I know that I will read this book again and again, and am therefore glad that I spent the money to get it in hardback. It is well worth the money, and is a beautiful "rough cut" book. I have thought about its message again and again since reading it; I would call it haunting, thought-provoking, disturbing, and honest.
*****

63 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting Characters from a Haunting Subject, January 20, 2004

By	Richard A. Mitchell "Rick Mitchell" (candia, new hampshire United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

First off, this novel is not written in a lineal fashion. At times the author jumps decades, even a century into the future. It took me a while to warm to the style, but not only does it work, it is the way one person would tell the a story about another person: "He did this and this. Little did we know that he would become a ..."

There are few authors who can portray characters as well as Mr. Jones. I would put him in Steinbeck's class. The reader gets to know all the characters in this book well. At first, I thought Mr. Jones was merely introducing the people who populate this book (and there is a significant population of characters). I then realized that this was what the book was all about - the lives of these people in Madison County Virginia. And what interesting lives they were.

The central theme is slave-owning blacks. The slave-owners, white and black, are followed as are free blacks and free whites. At the center is the plantation and its denizens of a slave-owning black named Henry. He was bought out of slavery as a boy by his father who now disapproves of his son's holding slaves. When Henry dies, his widow tries unsuccessfully to hold the plantation together with what she perceives is the benevolence that would allow her to follow her husband to heaven. Heaven accepted benevolent slave-owners. One ned not free his slaves to get through the Pearly Gates. It should be noted that some of the descriptions of this book portray the central theme as this disintegration. However, it comes near at the end of the book and is almost an afterthought.

The heart of this book is the tenuous intertwining of whites and blacks in the ante-bellum south. Rather than the usual handling of these tensions, this book adds the compelling component of blacks owning blacks. This addition of a fourth class of southern citizen after rich whites, poor whites and slaves enriches this book and makes it a five star read. The rich character portraits carry the story-line rather than vice versa.

I strongly recommend this book. It was wonderfully written, the characters hauntingly unforgettable and the topic a little known one that is compelling.