Besides a selection of letters by the abolitionist himself, the original collection includes an excerpt from W. E. B. Du Bois's biography, John Brown, addresses by Frederick Douglass and Ralph Waldo Emerson, poetry by Louisa May Alcott, and ...

After several attempts, he finally managed to escape north, taking the name John Brown in place of his slave name, "Fed." After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, Brown sailed to England and worked as a carpenter.