Britons Through Negro Spectacles

Merriman-Labor was clearly way ahead of his time with this razor-sharp satire, with many of his observations both painfully accurate and not entirely without humour * Buzz Magazine *
Fascinating … A jaunty travelogue set in London at the turn of the twentieth century … inverts a colonial gaze to subvert the culture and customs of Britain with wit, pastiche, satire and social commentary * Wasafiri *
A.B.C. Merriman-Labor [is] a pioneer of West African literature who speaks truth to power using irony and wit * The Sierra Leone Telegraph *

A.B.C. Merriman-Labor (Author)

A.B.C. Merriman-Labor was a barrister, writer, and munitions worker born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, in 1877. His published works include A Series of Lectures on the Negro Race and The Story of the African Slave in a Nutshell. He also edited two editions of the Handbook of Sierra Leone. He arrived in the UK in 1904 to study law. In 1907, he organised a centenary commemoration of the abolition of the slave trade in Westminster Abbey. He later embarked on an ‘entertainment-lecture’ tour called Life and Scenes in Britain, travelling across thousands of miles of West, South West, and Central Africa, which he expanded on to create Britons Through Negro Spectacles.

Bernardine Evaristo (Introducer)

Bernardine Evaristo, MBE, is an award-winning author of eight books of fiction and verse fiction that explore aspects of the African diaspora. Her novel Girl, Woman, Other made her the first black woman to win the Booker Prize in 2019. The novel also won Fiction Book of the Year at the British Book Awards in 2020, where she also won Author of the Year, and the Indie Book Award. In 2020, she became the first woman of colour and black British writer to reach No. 1 in the UK paperback fiction chart. In 2025 she was awarded the Women’s Prize Outstanding Contribution Award. Her other awards and honours include an MBE in 2009 and an OBE in 2020. Her writing spans reviews, essays, drama, and radio, and she has edited and guest-edited national publications. Bernardine is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University, London, and President of the Royal Society of Literature. She lives in London with her husband.

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