North Carolina Slave Narratives: The Lives of Moses Roper, Lunsford Lane, Moses Grandy, & Thomas H. Jones

Front Cover
University of North Carolina Press, 2003 - 279 pages
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.

The autobiographies of former slaves contributed powerfully to the abolitionist movement in the United States, fanning national--and 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.

From inside the book

 

Contents

A Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper
23
Narrative
35
Introduction by Tampathia Evans
79
Copyright

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Other editions - View all

North Carolina Slave Narratives: The Lives of Moses Roper, Lunsford Lane ...
William L. Andrews
Limited preview - 2006
North Carolina Slave Narratives: The Lives of Moses Roper, Lunsford Lane ...
William L. Andrews,David Alexander Davis
Limited preview - 2003
North Carolina Slave Narratives: The Lives of Moses Roper, Lunsford Lane ...
William L. Andrews
Limited preview - 2005

Common terms and phrases

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References to this book

About the author (2003)

William L. Andrews was born in 1946. He earned his B.A. from Davidson College in 1968. He received his M.A. in 1970 and Ph.D. in 1973, respectively, from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where he is currently the E. Maynard Adams Professor of English. His first book, The Literary Career of Charles W. Chesnutt, published in 1980, deals with a seminal figure in the development of African American and Southern American prose fiction. While researching To Tell a Free Story, a history of African American autobiography up to 1865, Andrews became greatly interested in autobiography studies. Since 1988 he has been the general editor of a book series, titled Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography, which is published by the University of Wisconsin Press. Since the mid-1980's he has done a considerable amount of editing of African American and southern literature and criticism. The fruition of this work has been The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, published in 1997, The Oxford Companion to African American Literature, also published in 1997, and The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology, three big collaborative projects that Andrews has co-edited. He went on to be the series editor of North American Slave Narratives, Beginnings to 1920, a complete digitized library of autobiographies and biographies of North American slaves and ex-slaves, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ameritech, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Bibliographic information

TitleNorth Carolina Slave Narratives: The Lives of Moses Roper, Lunsford Lane, Moses Grandy, & Thomas H. Jones
John Hope Franklin series in African American history and culture
Slavery in America and the world: history, culture & law
UNC Press law publications
AuthorWilliam L. Andrews
EditorsWilliam L. Andrews, David Alexander Davis
Editionillustrated, annotated
PublisherUniversity of North Carolina Press, 2003
Original fromthe University of Michigan
Digitized18 Sep 2008
ISBN0807828211, 9780807828212
Length279 pages
  
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