8.2 /10 1 Votes
Language English Media type Print ISBN 0-00-715024-5 Publisher HarperCollins | 4.1/5 Goodreads Publication date 07 April 2003 Pages 384 Originally published 7 April 2003 Page count 384 Country Scotland | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Cover artist Dundee from the Harbour, unknown artist, 1780s Award Saltire Society Literary Awards Similar James Robertson books, Other books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Joseph Knight is a historical novel by Scottish author James Robertson published in 2003 by Fourth Estate. It was the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year in 2003 and won the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award in 2004. The novel is based on the true story of a slave brought from the Jamaica to Scotland, and the novel revolves primarily around the cities of Dundee, near where Robertson was then living, and Edinburgh.
Contents
Plot introduction
The narrative begins in 1802 with elderly John Wedderburn on his Ballindean estate, near Inchture in Perthshire, who has been unsuccessfully trying to find the whereabouts of Joseph Knight, a slave he brought back to Scotland with him from his Sugar plantations in Westmoreland, Jamaica. Joseph had successfully gained his freedom from Wedderburn in a famous court case settled in 1778 in which it was decided that the slave laws of Jamaica did not apply in Scotland. After gaining his freedom though, Joseph disappeared. Wedderburn has employed Jamieson, a Dundee-based investigator to find Joseph and the story moves between the search for elusive Knight, the Wedderburn family experiences in Jamaica, illuminated by a journal written by John's brother Sandy (found by his daughter Sarah and handed to Jamieson to aid his investigations) and the events surrounding the court case.