This essay examines the literary emergence radical abolitionism in the context of the national, hemispheric, and transatlantic circulation of print. It begins with an overview of the present state of literary scholarship on abolitionist writing and then goes on to analyze several interrelated historical-textual events occurring around 1830. They include the publication of David Walker’s Appeal, William Lloyd Garrison’s emergence as an abolitionist editor and spokesperson, Nat Turner’s Rebellion, and the Jamaican uprising of 1831–32.