The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Anderson (Broadview Editions)
"In the early 1750s Edward Kimber completed The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Anderson, a strange and wonderful novel that quickly disappeared without a trace. The problem was not a boring narrative. He spun a complex tale of two young lovers in Maryland who tried to defy the conventions of a patriarchal Atlantic world of the eighteenth century. Rather, the problem was that Kimber dealt openly with economic oppression and human exploitation, imagining a violent slave revolt against the great planters of Virginia. One has to be reminded constantly that this work appeared many years before Abolitionists in England and America effectively challenged bondage. This book provides a splendid introduction to the violent complexity of Atlantic history." (T.H. Breen)"The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Anderson presents a fascinating glimpse into English perceptions of North America in the mid-eighteenth century. As Matthew and Nicholas Mason point out in their astute and accessible introduction, Edward Kimber's long-forgotten novel also reminds us that the eighteenth-century novel emerged in the transatlantic sphere. The appendices richly situate the novel in the context of other British writings on North America, including Kimber’s own (he traveled in the colonies from 1742 to 1744, and mined these experiences repeatedly in his long and productive career). Both the appendices and the Masons' introduction are particularly good in providing contexts for understanding Kimber's complex representations of indentured servitude and chattel slavery in the American colonies." (Melissa Homestead)