“Reader Brian Emerson is monotonous and cool, punctuating sentences by prolonging the last word and dropping his voice. The didactic, well-pronounced delivery…makes the history seem plausible.” AudioFile
Description
In this classic true adventure story, a young American sea captain named James Riley, shipwrecked off the western coast of North Africa in 1815, is captured by a band of nomadic Arabs and sold into slavery. Thus begins an epic adventure of survival and a quest for freedom that takes him across the Sahara desert.
This dramatic account of Captain Riley’s trials and sufferings sold more than one million copies in his day and was even read by a young and impressionable Abraham Lincoln. The degradations of a slave existence and the courage to survive under the most harrowing conditions have rarely been recorded with such painful honesty.
Sufferings in Africa is a classic travel-adventure narrative and a fascinating testament of white Americans enslaved abroad, during a time when slavery flourished throughout the United States.
Praise
“Reader Brian Emerson is monotonous and cool, punctuating sentences by prolonging the last word and dropping his voice. The didactic, well-pronounced delivery…makes the history seem plausible.” AudioFile
“Vividly capture[s] the long history of America's encounters with the Arab world.” Wall Street Journal
Details
| Language | English |
|---|---|
| Release Day | Nov 30, 2001 |
| Release Date | December 1, 2001 |
| Release Date Machine | 1007164800 |
| Imprint | Blackstone Publishing |
| Provider | Blackstone Publishing |
| Categories | Biographies & Memoirs, History, Politics & Social Sciences, Social Sciences, Adventurers, Explorers & Survival, Africa, Nonfiction - Adult, Nonfiction - All |
Author Bio
Captain James Riley was the captain of the United States merchant ship Commerce. He was sold into slavery after he and his crew were shipwrecked off the coast of Africa and went on to write Sufferings in Africa, a memoir about his ordeal. Riley was also the founder of Willshire, Ohio, named after William Wilshire, the man who saved him from slavery.
Narrator Bio
Brian Emerson is an actor and technical director with a long career in the Washington, DC, and Baltimore areas.
Overview
In this classic true adventure story, a young American sea captain named James Riley, shipwrecked off the western coast of North Africa in 1815, is captured by a band of nomadic Arabs and sold into slavery. Thus begins an epic adventure of survival and a quest for freedom that takes him across the Sahara desert.
This dramatic account of Captain Riley’s trials and sufferings sold more than one million copies in his day and was even read by a young and impressionable Abraham Lincoln. The degradations of a slave existence and the courage to survive under the most harrowing conditions have rarely been recorded with such painful honesty.
Sufferings in Africa is a classic travel-adventure narrative and a fascinating testament of white Americans enslaved abroad, during a time when slavery flourished throughout the United States.
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