A Strange Freak of Fate
A01=Walter H. Stowers
A01=William H. Anderson
African American newspaper
African American print culture
American racism
American South
Appointed
Author_Walter H. Stowers
Author_William H. Anderson
Category=DNT
Category=DS
Category=NHK
Category=NHTB
cross-racial friendship
Detroit history
Detroit Plaindealer
eq_anthologies-novellas-short-stories
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_fiction
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
John Saunders
late nineteenth-century history
lynching
nineteenth-century America
nineteenth-century print culture
Plaindealer
print culture
racial history
racism
Seth Stanley
Walter Stowers
William Anderson
Product details
- ISBN 9781644533796
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 17 Feb 2026
- Publisher: University of Delaware Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Appointed is a recently recovered novel written by William Anderson and Walter Stowers, two of the editors of the Detroit Plaindealer, a long-running and well-regarded African American newspaper of the late nineteenth century. Drawing heavily on nineteenth-century print culture, the authors tell the story of John Saunders, a college-educated black man living and working in Detroit. Through a bizarre set of circumstances, Saunders befriends his white employer’s son, Seth Stanley, and the two men form a lasting, cross-racial bond that leads them to travel together to the American South. On their journey, John shows Seth the harsh realities of American racism and instructs him in how he might take responsibility for alleviating the effects of racism in his own home and in the white world broadly.
As a coauthored novel of frustrated ambition, cross-racial friendship, and the tragedy of lynching, Appointed represents a unique contribution to African American literary history. This is the first scholarly edition of Appointed, and it includes a collection of writings from the Plaindealer, the authors’ short story “A Strange Freak of Fate,” and an introduction that locates Appointed and its authors within the journalistic and literary currents of the United States in the late nineteenth century.
As a coauthored novel of frustrated ambition, cross-racial friendship, and the tragedy of lynching, Appointed represents a unique contribution to African American literary history. This is the first scholarly edition of Appointed, and it includes a collection of writings from the Plaindealer, the authors’ short story “A Strange Freak of Fate,” and an introduction that locates Appointed and its authors within the journalistic and literary currents of the United States in the late nineteenth century.
Eric Gardner is a professor of English at Saginaw Valley State University and award-winning author of Unexpected Places: Relocating Nineteenth-Century African American Literature and Black Print Unbound: The Christian Recorder, African American Literature, and Periodical Culture.
Bryan Sinche is associate professor and chair of English and modern languages at the University of Hartford. He has published over a dozen articles on nineteenth-century American literature and culture and is the editor of the teacher’s guide accompanying the Norton Anthology of African American Literature.
Bryan Sinche is associate professor and chair of English and modern languages at the University of Hartford. He has published over a dozen articles on nineteenth-century American literature and culture and is the editor of the teacher’s guide accompanying the Norton Anthology of African American Literature.
