ABSTRACT
Free abolition pamphlets aimed at schools appear to have originated among Quaker abolitionists in the United States. To summarise, Clarkson argues that the Quakers had established a strategic base for the production and distribution of free pamphlet material in the context of abolition, and he demonstrated how closely their practices were initially followed by Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Abolition was rapidly becoming fashionable: its titles were composed by poets, scholars, clergymen and intellectuals, male and female. Women began to play a significant role in the movement. In mid-August 1788 the London Committee drew up its first major expenditure list which demonstrates the amounts of money being spent in different areas to generate this enormous free publishing campaign. Social reform in England and English abolition propaganda, in its final manifestation as free publicity, are uneasily and ironically conjoined.
