User:Kbutler88/The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself (1849)

The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself (1849) is a slave narrative written by Josiah Henson, who would later become famous for being the basis of the character of Tom from Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. The Life of Josiah Henson is his first work but was dictated to Samuel A. Eliot, who was a former Boston Mayer known for his anti-slavery views because although he was an accomplished orator, Henson had not yet learned to read and write. The narrative provides a detailed description of his life as a slave in the south.

Publication History
Henson’s autobiography was published in Boston in early 1849 by Arthur D. Phelps. Over the next three years, it sold 6,000 copies It was reprinted after, with different pagination by the Observer Press of Dresden Ontario, for Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Museum in Dresden. When it was later Henson's narrative was the model for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, his sale increased to a total of 100,000 sales. In 1851 it appeared in London and Edinburg as The Life of Josiah Henson, formerly a Slave: As Narrated by Himself. It has now been reproduced by various publishing companies including Applewood Books (ISBN 155709585X) and Dover Publications (ISBN 048642863X).

Public Reception
After the publication was released in 1849 and received little public attention until Harriet Beech Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in 1858. Soon after, it became widely believed that Hensen was the source of her work and was, in fact, Uncle Tom.

Advertisement
This slave narrative, begins with an ‘Advertisement.’ In the case of this book, the use of the word Advertisement is not to introduce an paid announcement to publicize a type of good or enterprise. Instead, it’s function is that of a notice to the readers to the fact that the work is the work is the authentic work of Josiah Henson. The advertisement discusses the fact that the memoir was written from a dictation given by Josiah Henson, and so, the substance of the work is his own while “little more than the structure of the sentences belongs to another.” Through the paragraph long passage, to further autheniticate the work, it expressly says that the work is “not fiction, but fact.”