Abigail Field Mott's the Life and Adventures of Olaudah Equiano

Eric D. Lamore is professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez. He is the coeditor of New Essays on Phillis Wheatley and the editor of Teaching Olaudah Equiano's Narrative: Pedagogical Strategies and New Perspectives and Reading African American Autobiography: Twenty-First-Century Contexts and Criticism.

Eric D. Lamore’s multifaceted edition of Abigail Field Mott Life and Adventures of Olaudah Equiano challenges textual paradigms in early Black Atlantic studies by bridging divisions between literary history and book history. This much-needed volume documents an important chapter in the evolution of Equiano’s transatlantic posthumous reputation while introducing readers to a signal contribution to early African American children’s literature."—William L. Andrews, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill"Think you’ve read the ‘authorized’ edition of Olaudah Equiano’s narrative? EricD. Lamore’s edition of Abigail Field Mott’s Life and Adventures of Olaudah Equiano might have you question your choice. It is an incisive, must-read primer for anyone considering Equiano or early American book history, Black subjectivity, and authorship. Read this book—and learn to think in new ways about what it means to tell a Black person’s story."—Tara Bynum, University of Iowa

• AcknowledgmentsIntroductionA Note on the Text The Life and Adventures of Olaudah Equiano; or, Gustavus Vassa, the African Explanatory NotesAppendix A: Rethinking Textual Paradigms in Early Black Atlantic StudiesAppendix B: Pedagogy, Politics, and Regulations at the New York African Free Schools An Address to the Parents and Guardians of the ChildrenBelonging to the New-York African Free-School(1818) Charles C. Andrews, Letter to John B. Russwurm,Freedom’s Journal(1827) “A[frican] F[ree] S[chool],”Freedom’s Journal(1828) A “[R]esolution,”Commercial Advertiser(1828) Selections from Charles C. Andrews,The History of theNew-York African Free-Schools(1830) Appendix C: Additional Works by and about Abigail Field Mott A Short Account of the Last Sickness and Death of Maria Mott(1817) “G[eneral] R[emarks]” from Abigail Field Mott,Observations on theImportance of Female Education, and Maternal Instruction(1825) Selections from Abigail Field Mott,Biographical Sketches andInteresting Anecdotes of Persons of Colour(1826) Selections from Abigail Field Mott,The Mother and Her Children(1828) “Report of [the] Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society of Albany,”The Albany Patriot(1845) Abigail Field Mott, “[Narrative] of Douglass,”The Liberator(1845) Memoir of Purchase Monthly Meeting, Concerning Abigail Mott(1852) Appendix D: Selected Commentary on the Institution of Slavery inBooks Published by Samuel Wood and Sons “To the Reader,”The Penitential Tyrant(1807) “A Family [C]onversation on the Slavery of the Negroes,”The New-York Reader, No. 2(1813) “Master and Slave,”The New-York Reader, No. 3(1819)