The Known World is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Edward P. Jones that explores the complex and often overlooked history of black slave owners in the antebellum South. The story centers on Henry Townsend, a former slave who becomes a successful and moral slave owner under the tutelage of William Robbins, the most powerful man in their Virginia county. When Henry dies unexpectedly, his widow Caldonia struggles to maintain the order of his plantation, and chaos ensues, revealing the intricate and morally ambiguous relationships between enslaved people, free blacks, and white landowners.