William Wells Brown was the first published African American novelist and playwright. Brown was born to an enslaved mother. Due to inadequate record keeping for slaves, the time and place is not assured. He was likely born in 1814 or 1815 in the Mt. Sterling area or in Lexington. Brown experienced the dissolution and sale of his own family and witnessed the harsh and brutal separation of other families in the institution of slavery. After years of failed attempts to escape slavery, for which he was jailed and beaten, Brown finally escaped to a life of freedom in 1834.

William Wells Brown went on to become a public advocate of the abolitionist and temperance movements. His memoir, Narrative of William Wells Brown, a Fugitive Slave, Written by Himself, had a direct influence on the abolitionist movement. In 1853, he published Clotel; or the President's Daughter and in 1858, a play The Escape; or a Leap for Freedom.