This tale reinvents William Hogarth's famous painting of 1732 which tells the story of a whore, a Jewish merchant, a magistrate and a quack doctor, bound together by sexual and financial greed.

A Harlot's Progress reinvents William Hogarth's famous print of 1732, which tells the story of a prostitute, a Jewish merchant, a magistrate, and a quack doctor bound together by sexual and financial greed. David Dabydeen's novel endows Hogarth's characters with alternative lives, redeeming them from their cliched status as predators or victims. The protagonist--in Hogarth, a black slave boy, in Dabydeen, London's oldest black inhabitant--tells his story to the Abolitionists in return for their charity. But instead of embarking upon yet another fictional journey into the dark nature of slavery, he spins a tale of myths, half-truths, and fantasies: recreating Africa and 18th-century London in startlingly poetic ways.