Tracy Chevalier

Honor Bright

This is how I imagine the main character, a young English Quaker who emigrates to America in 1850.

Oberlin, Ohio

This town was a major stop on the Underground Railroad. Always a radical place, Oberlin College was the first to admit women and African Americans.

The Sick Room

Many 19th-century American houses had “sick rooms” off the kitchen because someone often had a fever and needed tending. This one is at Hale’s Farm, Ohio.

Desperate measures for desperate times

Henry "Box" Brown was a slave who mailed himself to freedom.

Tracy’s quilt

In researching the novel, I learned how to quilt the way my heroine would have, and made this all by hand.

Quakers have no formal creed.

Their unity is based on shared understanding of the "Inner Light" in each person and a shared practice of silent worship.

Articles and Interviews About The Last Runaway

• Scotsman, 16 March 2013, interview

•Guardian, 16 March 2013, article on silence

• Daily Telegraph, 14 March 2013, interview

• Literary Sofa, 14 March 2013, blog post on Underground Railroad

• Metro, 12 March 2013, interview

• Cornflower Books, 11 March 2013, blog post on learning to quilt

• The Atlantic, 22 January 2013, blog post on my favorite quotation, “Less is more"

• Wall Street Journal, 21 January 2013, blog post on Underground Railroad

• The Daily Beast, 17 January 2013, interview

The Last Runaway