Annotated Bibliography
Carbado, Devon W. The Long Walk to Freedom: runaway slave narratives. Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 2012. Selected narratives of fugitive slaves including well-known figures such as Frederick Douglass and Nat Turner and others such as Harriet Jacobs and Henry "Box" Brown.
Costanzo, Angelo. Surprizing Narrative: Olaudah Equiano and the beginnings of Black autobiography. New York: Greenwood Press, 1987. This book includes information on the history of the slave narrative as the first black autobiography and the narrative of Olaudah Equiano.
Fisch, Audrey A. The Cambridge companion to the African American slave narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. This book looks at slave narratives in their historical and literary contexts including authors such as Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs and more.
Foner, Eric, and Lisa McGirr. American History Now. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011. Includes essays from scholars who look at prevailing interpretations of events from the colonial era through to the Reagan years and develop new understandings for consideration.
Frederick, Francis, and Catherine Lynette Innes. Slave life in Virginia and Kentucky a narrative by Francis Fedric, escaped slave. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010. Contains two of the three narratives by Francis Fedric.
Gaddis, John Lewis. The Landscape of History: How historians map the past. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. An in-depth look at understanding why and how historians, including biographers, write and why it should matter to us today.
Holroyd, Michael. Works on Paper: the craft of biography and autobiography. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 2002. A selection of occasional writings by the author including essays on biography entitled: The Case Against Biography and What Justifies Biography.
Jacobs, Harriet A., Lydia Maria Child, and Jean Fagan Yellin. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: written by herself. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987. The author's first hand account of life as an enslaved woman who escapes to freedom but not before hiding for seven years in the attic of a small storeroom.
Lee, Hermione. Biography: a very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Lee gives a general overview of biography, including ten rules for biography. This is a great resource for understanding and writing biography.
Osofsky, Gilbert, Henry Bibb, William Wells Brown, and Solomon Northup. Puttin' on ole massa; the slave narratives of Henry Bibb, William Wells Brown, and Solomon Northup.. [1st ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1969. The significance of slave narratives is discussed before the narratives of Henry Bibb, William Wells Brown, and Solomon Northup.
Penningroth, D.. "Writing Slavery's History." OAH Magazine of History 23, no. 2 (2009): 13-20. This article looks at the history of writing slave narratives.
Rhiel, Mary. The Seductions of Biography. New York: Routledge, 1996. This volume contains essays by authors on the topic of biography including Jean Fagan Yellin who wrote a biography of Harriet Jacobs.
Rush, Dana. "In Remembrance Of Slavery: Tchamba Vodun Arts." African Arts 44, no. 1 (2011): 40-51. This article gives historical background of the slave trade from the Northern Togo region along the Ghana coast.
Yellin, Jean Fagan. Harriet Jacobs: a life. New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2004.
This biography of Harriet Jacobs uses Harriet's narrative to create a full picture of her life as a runaway slave.
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