New York: Harper & Row, (1970) dj. Hardcover first edition - A thorough and well-researched biography of one of the most influential and controversial figures in American history, the first full-scale biography and the first based on original research to appear in 60 years. Brown was profoundly religious man dedicated to the overthrow of slavery and Negro rights, a failure at many things but one who. in his doomed attempt to seize the armory at Harper's Ferry, became a martyr to the abolitionist cause. a man who shaped the course of history. Photographs, extensive notes, index. xii, 434 pp.