North Carolina Slave Narratives: The Lives of Moses Roper, Lunsford Lane, Moses Grandy, and Thomas H. Jones / Edition 1

by William L. Andrews, David A. Davis, Tampathia Evans, Ian Frederick Finseth, Andreá N. Williams

Overview

The autobiographies of former slaves contributed powerfully to the abolitionist movement in the United States, fanning national—even international—indignation against the evils of slavery. The four texts gathered here are all from North Carolina slaves and are among the most memorable and influential slave narratives published in the nineteenth century. The writings of Moses Roper (1838), Lunsford Lane (1842), Moses Grandy (1843), and the Reverend Thomas H. Jones (1854) provide a moving testament to the struggles of enslaved people to affirm their human dignity and ultimately seize their liberty.

Introductions to each narrative provide biographical and historical information as well as explanatory notes. Andrews's general introduction to the collection reveals that these narratives not only helped energize the abolitionist movement but also laid the groundwork for an African American literary tradition that inspired such novelists as Toni Morrison and Charles Johnson.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807856581
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	08/29/2005
Series:	The John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture
Edition description:	1
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.66(d)

About the Author

General editor William L. Andrews is E. Maynard Adams Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is author or editor of more than thirty books, including The Literary Career of Charles W. Chesnutt and To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of Afro-American Autobiography, 1760-1865.

Table of Contents

General Introduction
A Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper
The Narrative of Lunsford Lane
Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy
The Experience of Rev. Thomas H. Jones

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

William Andrews, through his masterful study To Tell a Free Story and as editor of several editions of the slave narratives, has established himself as our leading commentator on the literary worlds that the African American slaves made. Like his previous editions, North Carolina Slave Narratives is a major contribution to our understanding of the nature and function of this most curious genre of literature. Carefully and painstakingly edited, North Carolina Slave Narratives is essential reading for all scholars and students of African American literature and history in the nineteenth century."—Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard University



Maritime slavery and plantation life, the surprising possibilities of urban bondage and the excruciating realities of sale and exile, all come through in these carefully introduced and well-chosen narratives. These four North Carolina autobiographers wonderfully enrich and enlarge the story of bondsmen and their struggles in America, casting light in new and hidden domains of the slave's experience."—Sydney Nathans, Duke University



In this well conceived, carefully edited, and judiciously annotated anthology of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century slave narratives by Moses Roper, Lunsford Lane, Moses Grandy, and Thomas H. Jones, William L. Andrews and his fellow editors make compelling arguments for recuperating these texts and recognizing their relationships to the better known narratives of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs. North Carolina Slave Narratives has much to offer to the general public, as well as scholars and students."—Vincent Carretta, University of Maryland

Editorial Reviews

For those who want to get some idea of what slavery in the South was like before the Civil War, this is the book. . . . Insights are everything . . . and this book abounds in them. . . . A compelling and hugely informative view of a time and an ethos that we can never forget."—Kliatt



From [the four narratives], students of North Carolina history can discover much about the diversity of slaves' experiences in the state, especially as related to literacy, manhood, masters, resistance, sympathizers, family, work, and religion."—Journal of Southern History



A fascinating collection of narratives."—Forecast



For those who want to get some idea of what slavery in the South was like before the Civil War, this is the book. . . . a compelling and hugely informative view of a time and an ethos that we can never forget."—Kliatt

From the Publisher