The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself (Norton Critical Editions)

by Equiano, Olaudah; Sollors, Werner

• ISBN13: 9780393974942
• ISBN10: 0393974944
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-12-08
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Summary

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 background, related travel and scientific literature, other eighteenth-century works by authors of African ancestry, and works debating the slave trade. "Criticism" includes six contemporary reviews and nine modern essays on the narrative by Paul Edwards, Charles T. Davis, Houston A. Baker, Jr., Angelo Costanzo, Catherine Obianju Acholonu, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Geraldine Murphy, Adam Potkay, and Robert J. Allison. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are included.

Table of Contents

Introduction	ix
Acknowledgments	xxxiii
The Text of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself
MAP: Equiano's World	2	(3)
Title page	5	(1)
Frontispiece	6	(2)
List of Subscribers	8	(8)
Contents of Volumes I and II	16	(163)
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself	19	(160)
Note on the Text	179	(2)
Selected Variants	181	(1)
Additions	181	(8)
Selected Textual Differences between the First and Ninth Editions	189	(4)
Contexts
Illustration: Nautical Terms	193	(2)
Related Public Writings
From Cursory Remarks [upon James Ramsay's Antislavery Writing] (1785)	195	(1)
James Tobin
Letter to James Tobin (January 28, 1788)	196	(3)
Gustavus Vassa
From Humanity; or, the Rights of Nature (1788)	199	(4)
Samuel Jackson Pratt
Letter to the Author of the Poem on Humanity (June 27, 1788)	203	(2)
Gustavus Vassa
Illustration: ``Description of a Slave Ship''	204	(1)
Letter to the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade (February 14, 1789)	205	(1)
Gustavus Vassa
General Background
From A Discourse upon the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality among Mankind (1755, transl. 1761)	206	(4)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Historical Background
[Humanitarianism, John Wesley, and Gustavus Vassa]	210	(6)
Eva Beatrice Dykes
[The Nature of the Protest]	216	(1)
Wylie Sypher
From Many Thousand Gone: The Ex-Slaves' Account of Their Bondage and Freedom	217	(5)
Charles H. Nichols
[The Rupture and the Ordeal]	222	(6)
Nathan I. Huggins
Eighteenth-Century English Literature on Commerce and Slavery	228	(22)
David Dabydeen
Illustrations: I. Cruikshank, William Blake, and Anonymous	242	(8)
Travel and Scientific Literature
From Some Historical Account of Guinea (1771)	250	(3)
Anthony Benezet
From A Voyage to the River Sierra-Leone (1788)	253	(3)
John Matthews
From Essay on the Causes of the Different Colours of People in Different Climates (1744)	256	(3)
John Mitchell
Eighteenth-Century Authors of African Ancestry
[From A Narrative] (1770, 1774)	259	(6)
James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw
[A Captive of the Cherokees] (1785)	265	(4)
John Marrant
[Reflections and Memories] (1787)	269	(8)
Quobna Ottobah Cugoano
The English Debate about the Slave Trade
From An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African (1786)	277	(4)
Thomas Clarkson
Letter to William Wilberforce Commenting on Gustavus Vassa (February 24, 1791)	281	(1)
John Wesley
From Speech in the House of Commons (May 13, 1789)	282	(1)
William Wilberforce
From The 1791 Debate in the House of Commons on the Abolition of the Slave Trade	283	(5)
Antislavery Verse
From The Dying Negro (1773)	288	(7)
Thomas Day
John Bicknell
Criticism
Early Reviews and Assessments
From the Monthly Review (1789)	295	(1)
From General Magazine and Impartial Review (1789)	296	(1)
[Review of The Interesting Narrative] (1789)	296	(1)
``W.'' Mary Wollstonecraft
From Gentleman's Magazine (1789)	297	(1)
Richard Gough
Vassa (1808)	298	(3)
Henri Gregoire
[Olaudah Equiano] (1833)	301	(1)
Lydia Maria Child
Modern Criticism
From Introduction to The Life of Olaudah Equiano	302	(36)
Paul Edwards
From The Slave Narrative: First Major Art Form in an Emerging Black Tradition	338	(1)
Charles T. Davis
From Figurations for a New American Literary History	339	(9)
Houston A. Baker, Jr.
From The Spiritual Autobiography and Slave Narrative of Olaudah Equiano	348	(3)
Angelo Costanzo
The Home of Olaudah Equiano--A Linguistic and Anthropological Search	351	(10)
Catherine Obianju Acholonu
From The Trope of the Talking Book	361	(7)
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Olaudah Equiano, Accidental Tourist	368	(14)
Geraldine Murphy
From Olaudah Equiano and the Art of Spiritual Autobiography	382	(11)
Adam Potkay
Equiano's Narrative as an Abolitionist Tool	393	(4)
Robert J. Allison
Olaudah Equiano: A Chronology	397	(4)
Selected Bibliography	401