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| Introduction | ix | |
| Acknowledgments | xxxiii | |
| Map: Equiano's World | 2 | |
| Title page | 5 | |
| Frontispiece | 6 | |
| List of Subscribers | 8 | |
| Contents of Volumes I and II | 16 | |
| The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself | 19 | |
| Note on the Text | 179 | |
| Selected Variants | 181 | |
| Additions | 181 | |
| Selected Textual Differences between the First and Ninth Editions | 189 | |
| Contexts | ||
| Illustration: Nautical Terms | 193 | |
| Related Public Writings | ||
| From Cursory Remarks [upon James Ramsay's Antislavery Writing] (1785) | 195 | |
| Letter to James Tobin (January 28, 1788) | 196 | |
| From Humanity; or, the Rights of Nature (1788) | 199 | |
| Letter to the Author of the Poem on Humanity (June 27, 1788) | 203 | |
| Illustration: "Description of a Slave Ship" | 204 | |
| Letter to the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade (February 14, 1789) | 205 | |
| General Background | ||
| From A Discourse upon the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality among Mankind (1755, transl. 1761) | 206 | |
| Historical Background | ||
| [Humanitarianism, John Wesley, and Gustavus Vassa] | 210 | |
| [The Nature of the Protest] | 216 | |
| From Many Thousand Gone: The Ex-Slaves' Account of Their Bondage and Freedom | 217 | |
| [The Rupture and the Ordeal] | 222 | |
| Eighteenth-Century English Literature on Commerce and Slavery | 228 | |
| Illustrations: I. Cruikshank, William Blake, and Anonymous | 242 | |
| Travel and Scientific Literature | ||
| From Some Historical Account of Guinea (1771) | 250 | |
| From A Voyage to the River Sierra-Leone (1788) | 253 | |
| From Essay on the Causes of the Different Colours of People in Different Climates (1744) | 256 | |
| Eighteenth-Century Authors of African Ancestry | ||
| [From A Narrative] (1770, 1774) | 259 | |
| [A Captive of the Cherokees] (1785) | 265 | |
| [Reflections and Memories] (1787) | 269 | |
| The English Debate About the Slave Trade | ||
| From An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African (1786) | 277 | |
| Letter to William Wilberforce Commenting on Gustavus Vassa (February 24, 1791) | 281 | |
| From Speech in the House of Commons (May 13, 1789) | 282 | |
| From The 1791 Debate in the House of Commons on the Abolition of the Slave Trade | 283 | |
| Antislavery Verse | ||
| From The Dying Negro (1773) | 288 | |
| Criticism | ||
| Early Reviews and Assessments | ||
| From the Monthly Review (1789) | 295 | |
| From General Magazine and Impartial Review (1789) | 296 | |
| "W." [May Wollstonecraft] [Review of The Interesting Narrative] (1789) | 296 | |
| From Gentleman's Magazine (1789) | 297 | |
| Vassa (1808) | 298 | |
| [Olaudah Equiano] (1833) | 301 | |
| Modern Criticism | ||
| From Introduction to The Life of Olaudah Equiano | 302 | |
| From The Slave Narrative: First Major Art Form in an Emerging Black Tradition | 338 | |
| From Figurations for a New American Literary History | 339 | |
| From The Spiritual Autobiography and Slave Narrative of Olaudah Equiano | 348 | |
| The Home of Olaudah Equiano--A Linguistic and Anthropological Search | 351 | |
| From The Trope of the Talking Book | 361 | |
| Olaudah Equiano, Accidental Tourist | 368 | |
| From Olaudah Equiano and the Art of Spiritual Autobiography | 382 | |
| Equiano's Narrative as an Abolitionist Tool | 393 | |
| Olaudah Equiano: A Chronology | 397 | |
| Selected Bibliography | 401 |
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Bernd Winterberg
reviewed Narrative of the Life of Olaudiah Equiano on July 10, 2017
Narrative of the Life of Olaudiah Equiano
My wife was so excited when she found out I was reading this, because she says she now knows the worst possible answer to "What are you into?" "I'm pretty into 18th-century slave narratives." It's a good thing I'm already married, she says. Worst Tinder profile ever.
Anyway, so I'm pretty into 18th-century slave narratives, specifically this one book, the first major slave narrative, which was a ginormous success when it was published in 1789, going to eight editions and remaining continuously in print for a century, and helping to bring about the end of slavery in Britain. (I'm also into 19th-century slave narratives!)
And Olaudah Equiano's story has it all. Slavery! Naval warfare! Shipwreck! Arctic exploration! It's so action-packed that it feels wildly improbable, but Equiano was a public figure, a leading abolitionist, and most of his story is thoroughly documented. There's some pedantic debate about whether he was born in Africa or South Carolina. (The book begins in Africa and follows his capture and passage to the Indies.) The rest of it definitely happened.
The more unfortunate thing is that it's wildly boring. Equiano has a fascinating story, but he's a horrendous storyteller. Here's a story:
Just as our ship was under sail, I went down under the cabin, to do some business, and had a lighted candle in my hand, which, in my hurry, without thinking, I held in a barrel of gunpowder. It remained in the powder, until it was near catching fire, when fortunately, I observed it.
That's incredible, right? I'm almost impressed at his ability to make such a great story that boring. Wait 'til he starts talking about God, it's dire.
So this is sort of the Castle of Otranto of slave narratives: it's an inventor of the genre, and responsible for codifying many of its rules, but in itself it's not great literature. As slave narratives became a popular genre in the 19th century, they followed Equiano's three-act blueprint:
- The horrors of slavery are described
- There is a dramatic escape
- The author becomes a productive member of society.
The details here are unique, mostly due to Equiano's extensive naval career, but the basic arc is in place. More gifted writers - notably Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs and Solomon Northup - would make better literature with it in the coming century. Olaudah Equiano's book is important but not terrifically well-told; I can only really recommend it if, say, you're already pretty into 18th-century slave narratives.
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Add Narrative of the Life of Olaudiah Equiano, The text of Equiano's narrative presented here is that of the 1789 first edition. It is accompanied by an introduction, maps, illustrations, and annotations. Contexts provides essential public writings on the autobiography, general and historical , Narrative of the Life of Olaudiah Equiano to the inventory that you are selling on WonderClubX
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Add Narrative of the Life of Olaudiah Equiano, The text of Equiano's narrative presented here is that of the 1789 first edition. It is accompanied by an introduction, maps, illustrations, and annotations. Contexts provides essential public writings on the autobiography, general and historical , Narrative of the Life of Olaudiah Equiano to your collection on WonderClub |