Choice Review

Sancho (1729-80), a black man born on a slave ship, was a household servant from childhood. He was "taken up as a prot'eg'e of the 2nd Duke of Montagu" and assimilated into "the polite English society of his day as an amateur of literature, music and painting." He became owner of a "fashionable" Westminster shop and was a friend of Laurence Sterne and David Garrick. These 159 letters, written in a typical literate 18th-century style, date from February 14, 1768, to December 7, 1780. Sancho wrote to a wide circle of acquaintances on such subjects as his gratitude to them, his family's health, national events (especially the American Revolution), the position of black people, and the fortunes of his shop. His "most famous and influential" letter was to Sterne; in it Sancho asks the novelist to "give one half-hour's attention to slavery, as it is at this time practiced in our West Indies...." Sancho commiserates, praises, gently scolds, and takes a sincere and sympathetic interest in his correspondents, who clearly accept him as their equal. This reviewer wishes the editors had provided more information about Sancho's correspondents, but the footnotes and appendixes are enlightening. This fascinating volume opens a door on a little-known side of British history. Recommended highly for black studies and history collections. J. Overmyer; emerita, Ohio State University