Review of Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown

This book contains the amazing but true tale of a Virginia slave who literally mailed himself to freedom in a claustrophobic wooden crate. It was quite an ordeal. The crate was helpfully labeled THIS SIDE UP, but this was ignored several times in his long journey. For 27 hours, he was jostled, turned upside down, and generally knocked about, but he took it all with extraordinary fortitude.

Brown's account caused controversy when it was first published. Because he revealed the details of his plan, it meant other slaves couldn't use the same ingenious method to escape. Still, it's an interesting story and an excellent example of slave narrative literature.