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David Walker's Appeal is a landmark work of American history and letters, the most radical piece of writing by an African American in the nineteenth century. Startling in its intensity, unrelenting in its attacks on slavery and white racism, it alarmed Southern slaveholders, inspired Northern abolitionists, and hastened the sectional conflicts that led to the Civil War. In this new edition of the Appeal, the distinguished historian Sean Wilentz draws on a generation of innovative research to throw fresh light on Walker's life and ideas--and their enduring importance

Bibliographical footnotes

Bibliographical footnotes

1Sandman's Goodnight Stories

By Abbie Phillips Walker

Have you every read a bed time story to a child? Or had one read to you? Fun, isn't it? These 28 delightful, short, well written and whimsical stores by the famous storyteller Abby Phillips just beg to be read aloud by adults or children. With titles like THE REVENGE OF THE FIREFLIES and SALLIE HICKS'S FOREFINGER how can you go wrong? Turn on the nightlight, tuck 'em in, settle down in the rocking chair and ... enjoy. (Summary by phil chenevert)

Reading bedtime stories to children can be a wonderful way to relax and at the same time act out the exciting things happening in the story for them. If you've done it, you know the feeling and if you haven't I can only hope that you were the rapt audience for such stories when a child. We can let ourselves go and perform all the parts with abandon because the only audience are those who unreservedly appreciate our thespian talents. These 25 stories are all original and all sparkling examples of Abby Walker's ability to spin a witty story that is fun to read and listen to. Don't you really want to know about The Good Sea Monster? The Shoemaker Rat or most of all, The Disorderly Girl? If not, you may go back to reading Kant with my blessing. (Summary by Phil Chenevert)

The book is a series of independent demonstrations, the results of which accumulate to the final conclusion, that the Christian religion is necessarily the only religion possible to meet the spiritual wants of mankind. In arriving at this conclusion, the different arts and processes of revealed religion are examined, and their adaptedness to perform their several functions in elevating, purifying, and actuating the human soul to benevolent effort, is determined, and, finally, the practical operation of the system is shown, as a matter of undeniable experience, to produce the complete and necessary result required. . . . As four is contained in twelve three times, and as twelve is the only number in which four is three times contained; so the capacities and susceptibilities of the human soul being given, and the power and adaptations of revelation being ascertained, the result is obtained (may it not be said with mathematical certainty?) that Christianity, as taught by the interpretation and experience of evangelical Christians, is the true religion and the only religion possible for human nature. (Introduction from Preface to 2nd Edition.)

Mary Edwards Walker was a physician and surgeon who served in the Civil War. An abolitionist, prohibitionist, and cross-dressing leader of the women's dress reform movement, she published this lively sex manual in 1878. It is a curious blend of useful information and Victorian sexual mythology, at once puritanical and explicit. (Summary by Pamela Nagami)

A collection of some of the most significant literary work on the English Lake District prior to Thomas West’s A guide to the Lakes (1778). The poet Thomas Gray takes the reader from Brough south to Kendal on his return from a tour in Scotland. An agricultural reformer, Arthur Young, also returning from Scotland, begins his journey in the northern parts of Cumberland with dry descriptions of local farming, but on arriving in Keswick, his account turns to the picturesque scenery around Derwent Water, Ullswater and Windermere. ‘Wild and romantic’ is Young’s phrase, yet the agriculturalist in him comes to the fore as he declares the enclosed landscapes around Kendal and Windermere to be the most picturesque of all. Thomas Pennant’s account of his journey through the district is cursory, and he seems not have noticed the lakes or mountains at all. West’s Guide quotes Gray, Young and Pennant, and its second edition included the full text of Gray’s unpublished letters as an addendum. It also included four short pieces. John Brown’s letter to his former pupil William Gilpin (who would become the foremost exponent of the ‘picturesque’) connects the scenery of the Lakes to European landscape painting. Experimental philosopher Adam Walker provides a note on a local curiosity, the underground passages of Dunald Mill Hole. John Dalton and Richard Cumberland were among the first in a long line of Lakeland poets to be inspired to verse.> - Summary by Phil Benson

A tour de force of the history, construction, preservation, and beauty of all types of rugs, with chapters on braided, needlepoint, woven, crocheted, tapestry, and embroidered rugs and other lesser-known types of floor coverings. - Summary by Joanne Turner

The Appeal grabbed readers’ attention in as dramatic a manner as Walker could have possibly imagined. In her book, Maria W. Stewart and the Roots of Black Political Thought, Kirsten Waters writes about how the pamphlet itself was viewed as dangerous by pro-slavery forces, while Walker actively worked to get his text in the hands of Black readers. He did not direct his writing to White audiences, and in the third edition added a special message to Black readers, saying that: <br> <br> It is expected that all coloured men, women, and children† of every nation, language, and tongue under heaven, will try to procure a copy of this Appeal and read it, or get some one to read it to them, for it is designed more particularly for them.

8Sandman's Rainy Day Stories

By Abbie Phillips Walker

A book of sleepy bed time stories for children read for you, no matter what age you are, read to you by talented and wonderful LibriVox volunteers. - Summary by phil chenevert