Slave Narratives After Slavery

Slave Narratives After Slavery provides the complete original text of five overlooked slave narratives that appeared between Reconstruction and the turn of the twentieth century, offering historical introductions and suggested further readings for each.

William L. Andrews is E. Maynard Adams Professor of English, University of North Carolina. He is the author of and editor of numerous books, including The Literary Career of Charles W. Chesnutt, To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of Afro-American Autobiography, 1760-1865, and The Norton Anthology of African American Literature.

Introduction (with bibliography)
Note on the text
Introduction to Keckley and Behind the Scenes
Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House (New York: G.W. Carleton, 1868).
Introduction to Adams and Narrative of the Life
John Quincy Adams, Narrative of the Life of John Quincy Adams, When in Slavery, and Now as a Freeman (Harrisburg, Pa.: Sieg, 1872).
Introduction to Brown and My Southern Home
William Wells Brown, My Southern Home, or, The South and Its People (Boston: A. G. Brown and Co., Publishers, 1880).
Introduction to Delaney and From the Darkness Cometh the Light
Lucy Ann Berry Delaney, From the Darkness Cometh the Light; or, Struggles for Freedom (St. Louis: J. T. Smith, 1891).
Introduction to Hughes and Thirty Years a Slave
Hughes, Louis, Thirty Years a Slave: From Bondage to Freedom: The Institution of Slavery as Seen on the Plantation and in the Home of the Planter (Milwaukee: South Side Printing Company, 1897).