William Wilberforce was an MP, a committed Christian and a vanguard in the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire. He campaigned all his life, despite opposition and ill health and championed reform in many areas of society. He was founder of the Church Mission Society and what would later come to be known as the RSPCA.
William Wilberforce was, to say it mildly, an inspiring man. His life and influence are profoundly impacting.
This book, however, is a very poor outline of his life. It contains numerous repetitions (to the point where lengthy quotes are used again in the following paragraph) and jumps all over the place, leaving the reader without a clear timeline of the events that occurred.
Wilberforce is certainly worth reading about, but this particular edition is definitely miss-able.
3 stars only because of the poor presentation of materials.
This book is a collection of Wilberforce’s own writings as well as his contemporaries writing about him. The selections chosen are excellent and wonderfully make the case of Wilberforce’s preeminent place in history. I’m grateful to have ease of access to such a wide array of texts including excerpts from “A Practical View of Christianity,” samplings of William Cowper’s poems pertaining to Wilberforce and the African Slave Trade, and even newspaper accounts of Wilberforce’s funeral.
Where this book falls short is 1) in the numerous editorial misses. As other commenters have noted some sentences/paragraphs accidentally are duplicated and inserted oddly making for difficult reading. And there are odd spelling mistakes and typographical errors. 2) Though I am grateful for the collection of various texts, there is no “through line” to the selection. There is no theme to what is chosen, nor is there added commentary providing a connecting narrative or even historical context as to who or why that text was written. Such additions could have greatly improved this book.
As it stands, I still am thankful for the new insights I was able to gather about Wilberforce and his remarkable life.