The historical and literary importance that slave narratives—the autobiographical accounts written by formerly enslaved people in the United States and throughout the Atlantic world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—wielded in their own time and continue to wield in ours is difficult to overstate. Popular and widely read on both sides of the Atlantic, slave narratives played an indispensable role in the campaigns against slavery in Britain and the United States and in the development of a black literary tradition, and they continue to be widely read and to shape popular understandings and memories of slavery today. “Only By Experience”: An Anthology of Slave Narratives collects, in whole or in part, sixteen of the most significant and influential slave narratives in English. Based on material from the acclaimed Broadview Anthology of British Literature and Broadview Anthology of American Literature, the anthology includes works from the British Empire as well as the United States and puts classic examples of the slave narrative genre in conversation with works that raise questions about how the genre is defined. The anthology also features thorough headnotes and annotations for each work, as well as detailed contextual materials for many of the works included.
Comments
COMMENTS ON The Broadview Anthology of American Literature
“The expansion, diversification, and revitalization of the texts and terms of American literary history in recent years is made marvelously accessible in the … new Broadview Anthology of American Literature.” — Hester Blum, Penn State University
“The Broadview Anthology of American Literature is, quite simply, a breakthrough. … Meticulously researched and expertly assembled, this anthology should be the new gold standard for scholars and teachers alike.” — Michael D’Alessandro, Duke University
“So much thought has been put into every aspect of the Broadview Anthology of American Literature, from the selection of texts to their organization to their presentation on the page; it will be a gift to classrooms for years to come.” — Lara Langer Cohen, Swarthmore College
“The multiplicity of early American locations, languages, and genres is here on wondrous display.” — Jordan Alexander Stein, Fordham University
“Above all, this is a volume for the 21st century. … Its capaciousness and ample resource materials make for a text that is always evolving and meeting its readers in new ways.” — Russ Castronovo, University of Wisconsin-Madison
“a rich collection that reflects the diversity of American literatures…. [and] that never forgets its most important audience: students. There is a wealth of material here that will help them imagine and reimagine what American literature could be.” — Michael C. Cohen, UCLA
