Henry Louis Gates, Jr
finds interesting in the novel the manner in which one discursive field collapses, as it were, into quite another, of a different status.
Wilson, Harriet E. “Introduction”. Our Nig, edited by Henry Louis, Jr Gates, Vintage Books, Random House, 1983, p. xi - lix.
xxxvi
He hints, though inconclusively, that a handful...
Literary responses
Frances E. W. Harper
One of the earliest novels penned by an African-American woman, it remains a valuable text for the way in which it so clearly delineates the relationship between the images of black women held at large...
names
Frances E. W. Harper
BirthName: Frances Ellen Watkins
Nickname: The Brown Muse
Henry Louis Gates, Jr
claims that FEWH
was commonly known as this but provides no further information.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr et al. “Introduction”. Three Classic African-American Novels, Vintage Books, 1990, p. vii - xvii.
xiii
Married: Harper
Pseudonym: Effie Afton
Author summary
Frances E. W. Harper
An active lecturer and author in support of abolition, women's rights, and racial equality in the mid-nineteenth century, FEWH
was, according to Henry Louis Gates, Jr
, the first African-American professional woman of letters.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr et al. “Introduction”. Three Classic African-American Novels, Vintage Books, 1990, p. vii - xvii.
xii
Textual Features
Frances E. W. Harper
FEWH
tells the story of Iola Leroy, an upper-class woman living in Reconstruction America who is raised believing that she is white. She eventually discovers that her mother, though an educated and free woman, was...
Textual Production
Harriet E. Wilson
In place of author's name on the title-page she repeats the demeaning nickname of the title, Our Nig. In her brief preface HEW
acknowledges the tightrope she walks in the likelihood that her story...
Timeline
Some time in the 1850s: Hannah Crafts, a fugitive slave, wrote The...
Writing climate item
Some time in the 1850s
Hannah Crafts
, a fugitive slave, wrote The Bondwoman's Narrative; possibly the first novel by a black woman, it reached publication in 2002.
Crafts, Hannah. “Introduction”. The Bondwoman’s Narrative, edited by Henry Louis, Jr Gates, Warner Books, 2002, p. ix - lxxv.
xii, xliv-xlv, lvi
Texts
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr et al., editors. “Chronology”. Zora Neale Hurston: Critical Perspectives Past and Present, Amistad, 1993, pp. 311-12.
Curtis, David A., and Harriet E. Wilson. “Chronology of Harriet E. Adams Wilson”. Our Nig, edited by Henry Louis, Jr Gates and Henry Louis, Jr Gates, Vintage Books, Random House, 1983, p. xiii - xxvii.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr, and Phillis Wheatley. “Foreword: In Her Own Write”. The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley, edited by John C. Shields and John C. Shields, Oxford University Press, 1988, p. vii - xxii.
Wilson, Harriet E. “Introduction”. Our Nig, edited by Henry Louis, Jr Gates, Vintage Books, Random House, 1983, p. xi - lix.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr, and Henry Louis, Jr Gates, editors. “Introduction”. The Classic Slave Narratives, Penguin, 1987, p. ix - xviii.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr et al. “Introduction”. Three Classic African-American Novels, Vintage Books, 1990, p. vii - xvii.
Crafts, Hannah. “Introduction”. The Bondwoman’s Narrative, edited by Henry Louis, Jr Gates, Warner Books, 2002, p. ix - lxxv.
Wilson, Harriet E. Our Nig. Editor Gates, Henry Louis, Jr, Vintage Books, Random House, 1983.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr et al. “Phillis Wheatley’s Struggle for Freedom in her Poetry and Prose”. The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley, edited by John C. Shields, Oxford University Press, 1988, pp. 229-70.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr et al. “Preface”. The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley, edited by John C. Shields, Oxford University Press, 1988, p. xxvii - xxxii.
Crafts, Hannah. The Bondwoman’s Narrative. Editor Gates, Henry Louis, Jr, Warner Books, 2002.
Wheatley, Phillis, and Henry Louis, Jr Gates. The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley. Editor Shields, John C., Oxford University Press, 1988.
Prince, Mary. “The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave”. The Classic Slave Narratives, edited by Henry Louis, Jr Gates, Penguin, 1987, pp. 183-38.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr, and Nellie Y. McKay, editors. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. Norton, 1997.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr, and Kwame Anthony Appiah, editors. Toni Morrison: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. Amistad, 1993.