Skip content
Get a free audiobook AND support bookstores Make the switch
The Strange Career of William Ellis by Karl Jacoby
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account
Libro.fm app

Get a free audiobook when you make the switch!

When you start a new membership in support of African American Literature Book Club with the promo code SWITCH, youโ€™ll get a bonus audiobook credit at sign-up.

Make the switch

Gift audiobook credit bundles

You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and African American Literature Book Club is supported by your purchase.

Start gifting

The Strange Career of William Ellis

The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire

$18.89

Get for $14.99 with membership
Narrator JD Jackson
Length 9 hours 29 minutes
Language English
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

To his contemporaries in Gilded Age Manhattan, Guillermo Eliseo was a fantastically wealthy Mexican, the proud owner of a luxury apartment overlooking Central Park, a busy Wall Street office, and scores of mines and haciendas in Mexico. But for all his obvious riches and his elegant appearance, Eliseo was also the possessor of a devastating secret: he was not, in fact, from Mexico at all. Rather, he had begun life as a slave named William Ellis, born on a cotton plantation in Texas during the waning years of King Cotton.

After emancipation, Ellis, capitalizing on the Spanish he learned during his childhood along the Mexican border and his ambivalent appearance, engaged in a virtuoso act of reinvention. He crafted an alter ego, the Mexican Guillermo Eliseo, who was able to access many of the privileges denied to African Americans at the time.

The Strange Career of William Ellis offers fresh insights on the history of the Reconstruction era, the U.S.-Mexico border, and the abiding riddle of race. At a time when the United States is deepening its connections with Latin America and recognizing that race is more than simply black or white, Ellis's story could not be more timely or important.

Karl Jacoby is a professor of history at Columbia University. The author of Shadows at Dawn and Crimes against Nature, he has won the Albert J. Beveridge Award and a Guggenheim fellowship, among many other honors. He lives in New York.

JD Jackson is a theater professor, aspiring stage director, and award-winning audiobook narrator. A classically trained actor, his television and film credits include roles on House, ER, Law & Order, Hack, Sherrybaby, Diary of a City Priest, and Lucky Number Slevin. The recipient of several audiobook awards for narration and an Odyssey Honor for G. Neri's Ghetto Cowboy, JD has also been named one of AudioFile magazine's Best Voices of the Year for 2012 and 2013.

Libro.fm app

Get a free audiobook when you make the switch!

When you start a new membership in support of African American Literature Book Club with the promo code SWITCH, youโ€™ll get a bonus audiobook credit at sign-up.

Make the switch

Gift audiobook credit bundles

You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and African American Literature Book Club is supported by your purchase.

Start gifting

Reviews

"Readers will gain fresh insight into life during Reconstruction as well as the riddle of racial identities." ---Library Journal Starred Review Expand reviews
book-open-1

Want the printed book?

Get the print edition from African American Literature Book Club.

Get the print edition

Powered by Bookstore Link

Get a free audiobook AND support bookstores Make the switch

African American Literature Book Club is proud to partner with Libro.fm to give you a great audiobook experience.