1. What purpose is served by the dedication to William Wilberforce?
2. What does Wedderburn give as his motives in writing this account? Do you think it is aptly named?
3. What were determining features of his Scottish family’s history? What is Wedderburn’s attitude toward his father? Which aspects of the latter’s behavior most disgusted him?
4. What were chief events of his mother’s life? What was his relation to his father’s other children?
5. What was his grandmother’s occupation? What influence may she have had on his life and opinions?
6. Is The Horrors of Slavery a well-designed polemic? Do its autobiographical features reinforce its political points?
7. Are there ironies in Wedderburn’s self-description as the son of James Wedderburn of Inveresk? (since his hatred of father was one of the dominating emotions of his life)
8. What are features of the style of The Horrors of Slavery? To what other forms of writing does it seem closely related? (newpaper controversy, melodrama of sensation and scandal, epistolary fiction, ongoing drama of challenges)
9. What is the purpose of introducing the letter from his half-brother, and the response of Bell’s Life in London?
10. What were Wedderburn’s reasons for remaining in England rather than returning to his homeland?
11. What do we know about his family life? Why do you think he may have alluded so little to his immediate family?
12. What are some noticeable features of the frontispiece and title page? Of Cruikshank’s caricatures?
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