SOURCE: An introduction to Blake; or, The Huts of America, Beacon Press, 1970, pp. xi‐xxv.

In the following essay, Miller presents an overview of Delany's life and discusses Blake as the epitome of Delany's pre‐Civil War thought.

“I beg to call your attention to the Story of ‘Blake or the Huts of America’ now being published in the ‘Anglo‐African Magazine’” Martin R. Delany wrote the noted abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison from a New York boardinghouse in February 1859. In the midst of a lengthy and frustrating attempt to raise money for a proposed African exploring venture (on which he would leave May 24, bound for Liberia), Delany added this plea in his letter to Garrison: “I am anxious to get a good publishing house to take it, as I know I could make a penny by it, and the chances for a Negro in this department are so...