In 1833, Elizabeth Barrett Browning published "The Appeal," the second of five anti-slavery poems EBB wrote throughout her life, for the first and only time. EBB published the volume in which it appeared, titled Prometheus Bound, translated from the Greek of Æschylus, and Miscellaneous Poems by the Translator, anonymously. Notably, the poem's 1833 publication aligns it with the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act, which outlawed slavery across the British Empire.