Mattie Griffith

Madge Vertner Mattie Griffith

This edition of Madge Vertner was produced with the assistance of Accessible Archives.

Mattie Griffith's pre-Civil War abolitionist novel Madge Vertner is a fictional portrait of American slavery told from the perspective of the young daughter of a wealthy southern slave owner. Originally serialized from 1859 to 1860 in the National Anti-Slavery Standard, a weekly abolitionist newspaper edited by Lydia Maria Child, it has never been published in novel form until now. Madge Vertner not only reveals the brutality and horror of slavery, but also raises many questions of race, gender, and equality that still resonate in American society today.