"The greatest American historical biography yet written." - Merrill D. Peterson, in John Brown: The Legend Revisited (2004)

"Villard captured the volatile contest between fact and interpretation that plagues every student of Brown...an impressively measured and thoughtful biography." -John Brown Still Lives (2011)

"Villard...pitilessly expose[d] Brown's savagery at Pottawatomie...praise[d] his humanitarian aims." - John Brown, Abolitionist (2009)

What is the true story behind John Brown the famous abolitionist and insurrectionist? Celebrated biographer Villard has surprising answers in his 1910 book.

Celebrated historical biographer Oswald Garrison Villard (1872-1949) delivers perhaps the greatest historical biography of one of the most complex and controversial figures in American history in his 1910 book "John Brown: 1800-1859: A Biography After Fifty Years."

John Brown (1800 -1859) was an abolitionist. Brown advocated the use of armed insurrection to overthrow the institution of slavery. He first gained national attention when he led small groups of volunteers during the Bleeding Kansas crisis of 1856. He was dissatisfied with the pacifism of the organized abolitionist movement: "These men are all talk. What we need is action-action!"

In May 1856, Brown and his supporters killed five supporters of slavery in the Pottawatomie massacre, a response to the sacking of Lawrence by pro-slavery forces. Brown then commanded anti-slavery forces at the Battle of Black Jack (June 2) and the Battle of Osawatomie (August 30, 1856).

In October 1859, Brown led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (today West Virginia), intending to start a slave liberation movement that would spread south through the mountainous regions of Virginia and North Carolina.

In introducing his work, Villard writes:

"Fifty years after the Harper's Ferry tragedy, the time is ripe for a study of John Brown, free from bias, from the errors in taste and fact of the mere panegyrist, and from the blind prejudice of those who can see in John Brown nothing but a criminal. The pages that follow were written to detract from or champion no man or set of men, but to put forth the essential truths of history as far as ascertainable, and to judge Brown, his followers and associates in the light thereof. ...

"So complex a character as John Brown's is not to be dismissed by merely likening him to the Hebrew prophets or to a Cromwellian Roundhead, though both parallels are not inapt; and the historian's task is made heavier since nearly all characterizations of the man have been at one extreme or another. But there is, after all, no personality so complex that it cannot be tested by accepted ethical standards. To do this sincerely, to pass a deliberate and accurate historical judgment, to bestow praise and blame without favor or sectional partisanship, has been the author's endeavor."

John Brown's story has recently gained popular interest due in part to the popular historical novel, "Good Lord Bird," turned into a miniseries in 2020 by Showtime.