For Megan Walsh, Ph.D., associate professor of English, the decision to republish Frank J. Webb’s “The Garies and Their Friends” was not a difficult one to make.
The novel, written by a black man, is about a mixed-race family in antebellum Philadelphia and was originally published in 1857.
Walsh, along with her friend and colleague, William Huntting Howell, an associate professor of English at Boston University, released a critical edition of the book earlier this year.
Walsh said she first read the novel in 2009 after becoming aware of a growing interest in Webb’s work. The novel instantly gripped her.
“I was struck immediately by its complexity, depth and nuance,” she said. “Taken as a whole, Webb’s novel illuminates some of the most important and complicated issues in U.S. history.”
Walsh said the novel deals with many issues, including race and racism; urban integration; economic and educational inequality; labor, industrialism and disability, among others.
She added that she was living in Philadelphia the first time she read the novel, which added a level of distinction to the book.
“In my travels across the city, I was awed by the way that Webb’s detailed attention to the city’s famous grid layout and its broad diversity seemed fresh and relevant 150 years after he wrote it,” she said.
Walsh said she and Howell signed a contract with Broadview Press, a Canadian printer, in 2012. Broadview, she notes, is “famous for reprising historical American literary writing in top-notch editions.”
While the printing of her own critical edition didn’t happen until this year, she decided to assign the novel in her American Literature of the 19th Century class in 2012.
She assigned the book along with other works like Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The House of the Seven Gables” and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
“I was interested to see how students reacted to the novel when read next to these classics. Like me, they were stunned that ‘The Garies’ isn’t regularly taught,” Walsh said. “I also invited them to tell me what they would like to see in a new edition — they gave me some real insights into how footnotes and supplemental material shape student reading experience.”
For Walsh, the historical significance of “The Garies and Their Friends” extends beyond its resonance with modern readers.
“Webb’s work stood out for us because so often many Americans, including scholars, continue to imagine antebellum black experience primarily through the institution of southern slavery,” she said. “Webb’s novel debunks that understanding of the past by painting a portrait of middle-class and wealthy black Americans living in the free North.”
The new critical edition of “The Garies and Their Friends” is available on Amazon.
mcelfrdh14@bonaventure.edu
