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"This anthology presents underappreciated works by African Americans active throughout the nineteenth century. Readers will find familiar names in this anthology, such as Douglass, Wells Brown, Jacobs, and Du Bois, but readers will also be introduced to lesser known and even unknown African Americans worthy of discussion, such as Solomon G. Brown, H. Cordelia Ray, and T. Thomas Fortune. Mance's intention for this volume is to offer an alternative to the Norton and Houghton Mifflin anthologies that emphasize only the canonical works of African American literature in the 19th century and to introduce students--and even professors--to a variety of writings, from poetry to journalism, by African Americans who have yet to receive their due"-- "Despite important recovery and authentication efforts during the last twenty-five years, the vast majority of nineteenth-century African American writers and their work remain unknown to today's readers. Moreover, the most widely used anthologies of black writing have established a canon based largely on current interests and priorities. Seeking to establish a broader perspective, this collection brings together a wealth of autobiographical writings, fiction, poetry, speeches, sermons, essays, and journalism that better portrays the intellectual and cultural debates, social and political struggles, and community publications and institutions that nurtured black writers from the early 1800s to the eve of the Harlem Renaissance. As editor Ajuan Mance notes, previous collections have focused mainly on writing that found a significant audience among white readers. Consequently, authors whose work appeared in African American-owned publications for a primarily black audience--such as Solomon G. Brown, Henrietta Cordelia Ray, and T. Thomas Fortune--have faded from memory. Even figures as celebrated as Frederick Douglass and Paul Laurence Dunbar are today much better known for their "cross-racial" writings than for the larger bodies of work they produced for a mostly African American readership. There has also been a tendency in modern canon making, especially in the genre of autobiography, to stress antebellum writing rather than writings produced after the Civil War and Reconstruction. Similarly, religious writings--despite the centrality of the church in the everyday lives of black readers and the interconnectedness of black spiritual and intellectual life--have not received the emphasis they deserve. Filling those critical gaps with a selection of 143 works by 65 writers, Before Harlem presents as never before an in-depth picture of the literary, aesthetic, and intellectual landscape of nineteenth-century African America and will be a valuable resource for a new generation of readers. "--

LITERARY CRITICISM / Reference. --- LITERARY CRITICISM / American / African American. --- African Americans --- American literature --- African American literature (English) --- Black literature (American) --- Negro literature --- African American authors. --- Afro-American authors --- Negro authors

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A pathbreaking consideration of the intertwined critical responses to Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frederick Douglass, giants of abolitionist literature. Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frederick Douglass represent a crucial strand in nineteenth-century American literature: the struggle for the abolition of slavery. Yet there has been no thoroughgoing discussion of the critical receptionof these two giants of abolitionist literature. Reading Abolition narrates and explores the parallels between Stowe's critical reception and Douglass's. The book begins with Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, considering its initial celebration as a work of genius and conscience, its subsequent dismissal in the early twentieth century as anti-Southern and in the mid-twentieth century as racially stereotypical, and finally its recent recovery as a classic of women's, religious, and political fiction. It also considers the reception of Stowe's other, less well-known novels, non-fictional works, and poetry, and how engaging the full Stowe canon has changed the shape of Stowe studies. The second half of the study deals with the reception of Douglass both as a writer of three autobiographies that helped to define the contours of African American autobiography for later writers and critics and as an extraordinarily eloquent and influential orator and journalist. Reading Abolition shows that Stowe's and Douglass's critical destinies have long been intertwined, with questions about race, gender, nationalism, religion, and thenature of literary and rhetorical genius playing crucial roles in critical considerations of both figures. Brian Yothers is Frances Spatz Leighton Endowed Distinguished Professor and Associate Chair of the Department ofEnglish at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Slavery in literature. --- African Americans in literature. --- Race in literature. --- African American abolitionists --- History and criticism. --- Stowe, Harriet Beecher, --- Douglass, Frederick, --- Criticism and interpretation --- History. --- Abolitionists, African American --- Afro-American abolitionists --- Abolitionists --- Afro-Americans in literature --- Negroes in literature --- Slavery and slaves in literature --- Slaves in literature --- Bailey, Frederick Augustus Washington, --- Bailey, Freddie, --- Bailey, Fred, --- Baly, Frederick Augustus Washington, --- Beecher Stowe, Harriet --- Beecher Stowe, Henriette --- Beecher Stowe, H. --- Stowe, Harriet Beecher --- Stowe, Harriet Elizabeth --- Bicher-Stou, Khenriet --- Stowe, H. B. --- Stou, Khenriet Bicher --- -Stowe, Enriqueta B. --- Stowe, Harriet Elizabeth Beecher --- Beecher, Harriet Elizabeth --- Bicher-Stou, G. --- Bicher-Stou, Garriet --- Stou, Garriet Bicher --- -Bicher-Stou, Ḣarrii̐et --- Bicher-Stou, Ḣ. --- Stou, Ḣarrii̐et Bicher --- -Beecher-Stowe, Harriet --- Ssu-tʻu-huo --- Beecher-Stowe, H. --- Stowe, H. Beecher --- -Bētser-Stoou --- Crowfield, Christopher --- Beecher, H. --- Sṭav, Hēriyaṭ Pīccar --- Sṭo, Haryeṭ Bits'er --- Bits'er Sṭo, Haryeṭ --- ביטשער סאאו --- ביטשער־סטאו --- סטאו, הערריעט ביטשער --- סטאו, הערריעט ביטשער, --- סטו, ביצ׳ר, --- ハリエットビーチャーストウ, --- Enslaved persons in literature --- Biography --- African American literature. --- American classics. --- American history. --- Douglass. --- Stowe. --- abolitionist literature. --- early American studies. --- literary studies. --- nationalism. --- nineteenth-century American literature. --- patriotism. --- slavery.