author
Frank J. Webb
1828–1894
An early African American novelist, poet, and essayist, he is best remembered for The Garies and Their Friends (1857), a groundbreaking novel about free Black life in the North. His work helped widen the possibilities of American fiction at a time when Black voices were rarely published.
1 Audiobook
The Garies and Their Friends
by Frank J. Webb
About the author
Born in Philadelphia on March 21, 1828, Frank J. Webb grew up in a free Black family with deep ties to abolitionist and reform circles. He worked as a novelist, poet, essayist, and also spent time as a commercial artist. His life connected him to a remarkable network of nineteenth-century Black activism and culture.
Webb is best known for The Garies and Their Friends, published in 1857. It is widely recognized as the second novel published by an African American and the first to portray the everyday lives of free Black people in the North. The book explores race, class, prejudice, and the dangers surrounding Black advancement, while also offering a vivid picture of Philadelphia life.
He later lived and worked abroad with his wife, Mary E. Webb, and he eventually continued his career as an educator. Though he was long less widely known than some of his contemporaries, his writing has been rediscovered for its historical importance and its sharp, humane portrait of Black life in nineteenth-century America.