Tuesday, April 12, 2022
VIRTUAL Event
6:00 pm
Free
Richard Friswell, Visiting Scholar Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
Merchants of Deceit: Opium, American Fortune & the China Trade
A work of historical fiction profiling Middletown’s Samuel Russell and his role in the Chinese opium trade
Richard Friswell is a Visiting Scholar at Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, where he directs the Institute for Lifelong Learning, their adult education program. This is his third book dealing with topics of cultural history through the imagined eye of a cultural historian and storyteller. His last book, Hudson River Chronicles: In Search of the Splendid & Sublime on America’s ‘First’ River (2019), highlights the life and times of 19th c. Hudson River School painter, Thomas Cole. It is set in the Catskills and relates his love of the Hudson and its surrounding mountains.
He speaks and lectures widely on topics related to the ‘Modern Era,’ a time during the 18th and 19th century when Western civilization was experiencing rapid change in the face of the Industrial Revolution and widespread political upheaval. He lives and writes in Branford, CT.
This event includes a PowerPoint presentation of key figures and locations included in the early 19th century opium trade, highlighting Middletown’s Samuel Russell and his time in Canton China. Excerpts will be drawn from the text of the newly published historical fiction book by the same name, highlighting a little-known chapter in U.S. history.
Photo Courtesy of Richard Friswell
