SOURCE: “The Kidnapped Clergyman and Brown's Experience,” in CLA Journal: Official Publication of the College Language Association, Vol. 18, No. 4, 1975, pp. 507-15.

In the following essay, Farrison looks at an anonymous play, The Kidnapped Clergyman, as a possible source for Brown's lesser known play, Experience.

In 1839 an anonymous antislavery drama entitled The Kidnapped Clergyman; Or, Experience the Best Teacher was published in Boston with the imprint of Dow and Jackson. In the next year it was reprinted with the imprint of G. N. Thomas, also of Boston. Each of these printings consists of a duodecimo volume of 123 pages. The only difference between them is in the names of the publishers. The fact that there were two printings of the drama in a short time may lead one to suppose that it had become a popular work. If it had, most probably its popularity did not remain extensive in either...