Anthologies of African American Writing

Nineteenth-Century African American Narratives in Britain and Ireland

"Nineteenth-Century African American Narratives in Britain and Ireland". Ed. Celeste-Marie Bernier and Hannah-Rose Murray. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2024. 568 pp.

List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Authors’ Note

● Ernest J. Quarles / Foreword (xv-xxii)
● Celeste-Marie Bernier and Hannah-Rose Murray / Introduction (1-60)
● Celeste-Marie Bernier and Hannah-Rose Murray / Bibliography of Digital and Print Resources (61-72)

Charles Freeman (dates unknown) [items #1, #2]
Biography and Further Reading (73)
● Charles Freeman / "The Escaped Slave: An Autobiography of Charles Freeman, with a Preface by the Rev. J. Whitby" (Ipswich. London: Partridge & Oakey, [1853]) (73-124)
● Anon., / "The Life of Charles Freeman, Once An American Slave" (London: Crozier & Mullin Printers, [1850?]) (125-30)

Phebe Ann Jacobs (1785–1850) [item #3]
Biography and Further Reading (131)
● Mrs. Thomas C. Upham [Phebe Lord Upham] / "Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs" (London: W. and F. G. Cash, 1850) (131-40)

Benjamin Crompton Chisley/William Jones (1812–date unknown) [item #4]
Biography and Further Reading (141)
● Benjamin Crompton Chisley / William Jones / "A Short Narrative of Benjamin Crompton Chisley or William Jones" (Manchester: Cathrall & Co., 1851) (141-52)

John Hart (dates unknown) [item #5]
Biography and Further Reading (153)
● Anon. / "The Life and Sufferings of John Hart, An American Slave" (Bradford: Joseph Bentley, n.d. [after 1855]) (153-62)

John Williams (dates unknown) [item #6]
Biography and Further Reading (163)
● John Williams / "Narrative of John Williams, A Negro" (Chatham, Kent: R. Taylor Albion, 1855) (163-84)

Henry (surname unknown) (1820–date unknown) [item #7]
Biography and Further Reading (185)
● Henry (Surname Unknown) / "The Story of a Fugitive Slave: With a Glance at the Present Aspects of the Slavery Question in the United States" (Edited by Frederick William Chesson, "The Lady’s Newspaper", London, England, September 1856–January 1857) (185-242)

James Watkins (c. 1823–1825–date unknown) [item #8]
Biography and Further Reading (243)
● James Watkins / "Narrative of the Life of James Watkins" (Manchester: Printed for James Watkins, 1859) (243-320)

William Gustavus Allen (c. 1820–1888) [item #9]
Biography and Further Reading (321)
● William Gustavus Allen / "A Short Personal Narrative" (Dublin: William Curry & Co., 1860) (321-40)

John Comber (dates unknown) [item #10]
Biography and Further Reading (341)
● John Comber / "Narrative of a Poor African, Who Escaped From Slavery with his wife and four children" (N.p.: 1861) (341-62)

Sarah Parker Remond (1826–1894) [item #11]
Biography and Further Reading (363)
● Sarah Parker Remond / "Sarah P. Remond" in Matthew Davenport Hill, "Our Exemplars, Poor and Rich; or, Biographical Sketches of Men and Women Who Have, By An Extraordinary Use of Their Opportunities, Benefited their Fellow-Creatures" (London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1861, pp. 276–86) (363-72)

James Cheeney Thompson (dates unknown) [item #12]
Biography and Further Reading (363)
● James Cheeney Thompson / "Remarkable Escape from Slavery" ("The Harbinger: A Magazine of The Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion". London: Ward & Co., September 1863, pp. 267–71) (363-72)

Dinah Hope Browne (1815–date unknown) [item #13]
Biography and Further Reading (373)
● John Hawkins Simpson / "Horrors of the Virginian Slave Trade and of the Slave-Rearing Plantations: The True Story of Dinah, An Escaped Virginian Slave" (London: A. W. Bennett, 1863) (373-416)

John Sella Martin (1832–1876) [item #14]
Biography and Further Reading (417)
● Anon. / "Narrative of the Rev. John Sella Martin" in Baptist Wriothesley Noel, "Freedom and Slavery in the United States" (London: James Nisbet, 1863, pp. 156–70) (417-28)

Lewis Smith (dates unknown) [item #15]
Biography and Further Reading (429)
● Jacob Odgers / "The Self-Ransomed Slave, A Biographical Sketch of Lewis Smith" (Redruth: N. Odgers, 1871) (429-42)

James Alfred Johnson (1847–1914) [item #16]
Biography and Further Reading (443)
● [Alice Johnson?] / "The Life of the Late James Johnson (Coloured Evangelist), an Escaped Slave From the Southern States of America, 40 Years Resident in Oldham, England" [c.1877–1878]. (Oldham: W. Galley, 1914) (443-60)

Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862–1931) [item #17]
Biography and Further Reading (461)
● Ida B. Wells (Ida B. Wells-Barnett) / "United States Atrocities, with an Introduction by S.J. Celestine Edwards" (London: ‘Lux’ Newspaper and Publishing Co. (Ltd.), 1892) (461-96)

D. E. Tobias (c. 1870–date unknown) [item #18]
Biography and Further Reading (497)
● D. E. Tobias / "Freed… But Not Free. The Grievances of the Afro-American" (London, S. H. Burrows, 1898) (497-522)

Benjamin William Brown (1841–date unknown) [item #19]
Biography and Further Reading (523)
● Benjamin William Brown / "Life in Slaveland" (Burnley: Nuttall & Co., 1902) (523-43)

"Brings together, for the first time, pioneering literary works by African American authors who made a revolutionary impact on UK and Irish nineteenth-century transatlantic literary cultures and political histories
Includes an in-depth introductory essay, author biographies, annotations, and detailed bibliographies in order to provide specialist and general audiences with the literary, political, historical, philosophical, and cultural contexts that were fundamental to nineteenth century Black transatlantic literary production
The nineteen texts constitute radical declarations of Black artistic and political independence by bearing witness to each author’s determination to resist white racist attempts to script, edit and censor Black acts and arts of imaginative literary production
This is the first scholarly anthology of nineteen narratives written by African American authors and published in Britain and Ireland in the nineteenth century.

These literary works share the powerful life stories of inspirationally pioneering writers: Charles Freeman, Phebe Ann Jacobs, Benjamin Crompton Chisley/William Jones, John Hart, John Williams, Henry (surname unknown), James Watkins, William Gustavus Allen, John Comber, Sarah Parker Remond, James Cheeney Thompson, Dinah Hope Browne, John Sella Martin, Lewis Smith, James Alfred Johnson, D. E. Tobias and Benjamin William Brown.

Their narratives are reproduced alongside an in-depth introductory essay, author biographies, scholarly annotations and a detailed bibliography.

All these authors testify to their lifelong ‘fight for freedom’ across their radical and revolutionary works. Throughout their lives, they warred against the ‘sufferings and horrors’ of enslavement as a centuries-old ‘cursed institution.’ ‘Words are weapons’ in their fight for Black liberation. Across their life’s works, they protested against the rise of the ‘spirit of slavery’ in white supremacist and white racist American and British transatlantic societies."

Hannah-Rose Murray. "Frederick Douglass in Britain and Ireland" (web project)

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