Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-t5pn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T09:51:32.465Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Other Interesting Narrative: Olaudah Equiano's Public Book Tour

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

John Bugg
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay examines the pre- and posthistory of The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789). Opening with a reconsideration of Vincent Carretta's influential claim that Equiano fabricated an African birthplace, I consider how Equiano's strategies of self-fashioning inform his trailblazing book tour of the British Isles in the early 1790s. If Equiano self-consciously designed his autobiography to become a best seller, his book tour performed the abolitionist manifesto that he was reluctant to put into print, as during his stops at cities and towns across the nation he worked to convert sympathetic readers into active abolitionists. Under the long shadow of the Pitt ministry's suppression of political activism in the 1790s, Equiano formed alliances with working-class and radical figures in Britain and Ireland, drawing on Shakespeare's Othello to develop a familiar public persona he could market during his book tour. (JB)

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 121 , Issue 5 , October 2006 , pp. 1424 - 1442
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

The Annual Register; or, A View of the History, Politics, and Literature, for the Year 1793. London: Printed for J. Dodsley, 1793.Google Scholar
Aravamudan, Srinivas. Tropicopolitans: Colonialism and Agency, 1688–1804. Durham: Duke UP, 1999.10.1215/9780822377764CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyce, Nell. “Out of Africa? New Questions about the Origins of a Seminal Slave Narrative.” U.S. News and World Report 10 Feb. 2003: 54.Google Scholar
Carretta, Vincent. Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man. Athens: U of Georgia P, 2005.Google Scholar
Carretta, Vincent. Introduction. Equiano, Narrative ix–xxxviii.Google Scholar
Carretta, Vincent. “‘Property of Author’: Olaudah Equiano's Place in the History of the Book.” Genius in Bondage: Literature of the Black Atlantic. Ed. Carretta, and Gould, Philip. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2001. 130–50.Google Scholar
Carretta, Vincent. “Questioning the Identity of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African.” The Global Eighteenth Century. Ed. Nussbaum, Felicity A. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2003. 226–35.Google Scholar
Casmier-Paz, Lynn A. “Slave Narratives and the Rhetoric of Author Portraiture.” New Literary History 34.1 (2003): 91–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarkson, Thomas. The History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament. Vol. 3. New York: John S. Taylor, 1836.Google Scholar
Colls, Robert. The Pitmen of the Northern Coalfield: Work, Culture, and Protest, 1790–1850. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1987.Google Scholar
Daniel, Defoe. A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain. Vol. 2. London: Dent, 1962.Google Scholar
Drescher, Seymour. “Whose Abolition? Popular Pressure and the Ending of the British Slave Trade.” Past and Present 143 (1994): 136–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, Paul. Introduction. The Life of Olaudah Equiano, or, Gustavus Vassa the African, 1789. London: Dawson's of Pall Mall, 1969. v–lxxxi.Google ScholarPubMed
Edwards, Paul. Introduction. The Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa the African. Essex: Longman, 1989. vii–xxxviii.Google ScholarPubMed
Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings. Ed. Carretta, Vincent. Rev. ed. New York: Penguin, 2003.Google Scholar
Equiano, Olaudah. Letter to Stanley Pumphrey. 1 July 1793. BA 8720/1 (ii). Worcestershire Rec. Office.Google Scholar
Fisch, Audrey A. American Slaves in Victorian England: Abolitionist Politics in Popular Literature and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, William. An Address to the People of Great Britain, on the Utility of Refraining from West India Sugar and Rum. London: M. Gurney, 1791.Google Scholar
Francklyn, Gilbert. An Answer to the Rev. Mr. Clarkson's Essay. London: J. Walter, 1789.Google Scholar
Gates, Henry Louis Jr. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism. New York: Oxford UP, 1988.Google Scholar
Geggus, David Patrick. Slavery, War, and Revolution: The British Occupation of Saint Domingue, 1793–1798. New York: Oxford UP, 1982.Google Scholar
Green, James. “The Publishing History of Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative.” Slavery and Abolition 16 (1995): 362–75.Google Scholar
Hair, P. E. H. “Slavery and Liberty: The Case of the Scottish Colliers.” Slavery and Abolition 21 (2000): 136–51.10.1080/01440390008575324CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardy, Lydia. Letter to Thomas Hardy. 2 Apr. 1792. PRO TS 24/12/1.Google Scholar
Hardy, Thomas. Memoir of Thomas Hardy. London: J. Ridgway, 1832.Google Scholar
Hinds Elizabeth Jane, Hinds. “The Spirit of Trade: Olaudah Equiano's Conversion, Legalism, and the Merchant's Life.” African American Review 32 (1998): 635–47.Google Scholar
Hodson, V. C. P. List of the Officers of the Bengal Army, 1758–1834. Vol. 4. London: Constable, 1947.Google Scholar
Hunt, E. M. “The Anti–Slave Trade Agitation in Manchester.” Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society 79 (1977): 46–72.Google Scholar
Rev. of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, by Olaudah Equiano. General Magazine and Impartial Review July 1789. Rpt. in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself. Ed. Sollors, Werner. New York: Norton, 2001.296.Google Scholar
Rev. of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, by Olaudah Equiano. Monthly Review June 1789: 551.Google Scholar
Ito, Akiyo. “Olaudah Equiano and the New York Artisans: The First American Edition of the Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African.” Early American Literature 32 (1997): 82–101.Google Scholar
Jennings, Judith. The Business of Abolishing the British Slave Trade, 1783–1807 Portland: Cass, 1997.Google Scholar
Jennings, Judith. “Joseph Woods, ‘Merchant and Philosopher’: The Making of the British Anti-Slave Trade Ethic.” Slavery and Abolition 14(1993): 162–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kazanjian, David. “Mercantile Exchanges, Mercantilist Enclosures: Racial Capitalism in the Black Mariner Narratives of Venture Smith and John Jea.” CR: The New Centennial Review 3 (2003): 147–78.Google Scholar
Kelleter, Frank. “Ethnic Self-Dramatization and Technologies of Travel in the Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself (1789).” Early American Literature 39 (2004): 67–84.10.1353/eal.2004.0012CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linebaugh, Peter. The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century. London: Lane, 1991.Google Scholar
Lowe, John. Poems. Manchester: R. and W. Dean, 1803.Google Scholar
Marren, Susan M. “Between Slavery and Freedom: The Transgressive Self in Olaudah Equiano's Autobiography.” PMLA 108 (1993): 94–105.Google Scholar
Murphy, Geraldine. “Olaudah Equiano: Accidental Tourist.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 27 (1994): 551–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nichols, James. Preface. The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Leeds: Printed for James Nichols, 1814. v–x.Google Scholar
Oldfield, J. R. “The London Committee and Mobilization of Public Opinion against the Slave Trade.” Historical Journal 35 (1992): 331–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oldfield, J. R. Popular Politics and British Anti-slavery: The Mobilization of Public Opinion against the Slave Trade, 1787-1807 London: Cass, 1998.Google Scholar
The Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803. Vol. 32 (1792). London: Printed by T. C. Hansard, 1812-20. 36 vols.Google Scholar
Phillips, Caryl. Cambridge. New York: Vintage, 1991.Google Scholar
Plymley, Katherine. Diaries. SA/1066/17. Shropshire Archives, Shrewsbury.Google Scholar
Potkay, Adam. “History, Oratory, and God in Equiano's Interesting Narrative.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 34 (2001): 601–14.Google Scholar
Rediker, Marcus. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700–1750. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987.Google Scholar
Rees, Alan M. “English Friends and the Abolition of the Slave Trade.” Bulletin of the Friends Historical Association 44 (1955): 74–87.Google Scholar
Rodgers, Nini. Equiano and Anti-slavery in Eighteenth-Century Belfast. Belfast: Belfast Soc; Ulster: Ulster Hist. Foundation, 2000.Google Scholar
Rolston, Bill. “Frederick Douglass: A Black Abolitionist in Ireland.” History Today 53.6 (2003): 35–51.Google Scholar
Samuels, Wilfred D. “Disguised Voice in The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African.” Black American Literature Forum 19 (1985): 64–69.Google Scholar
Shakespeare, William. Othello. Ed. Sanders, Norman. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003.Google Scholar
Shyllon, Folarin. Black People in Britain, 1555–1833. New York: Oxford UP, 1977.Google Scholar
Southey, Robert. The Life of Wesley: and the Rise and Progress of Methodism. New York: William B. Gilley, 1820.Google Scholar
Stein, Mark. “‘Olaudah Equiano: Representation and Reality’: An International One-Day Conference.” Early American Literature 38 (2003): 543–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sweeney, Fionnghuala. “‘The Republic of Letters’: Frederick Douglass, Ireland, and the Irish Narratives.” Éire-Ireland 36.1–2 (2001): 47–65.10.1353/eir.2001.0003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tobin, James. Cursory Remarks upon the Reverend Mr. Ramsay's Essay: Upon the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the Sugar Colonies. London: G. and T. Wilkie, 1785.Google Scholar
Turnbull, Gordon. Apology for Negro Slavery; or, The West-India Planters Vindicated from the Charge of Inhumanity. London: Stuart and Stevenson, 1786.Google Scholar
A Very New Pamphlet Indeed! Being the Truth: Addressed to the People at Large. Containing Some Strictures on the English Jacobins. London, 1792.Google Scholar
Waldstreicher, David. “Reading the Runaways: Self-Fashioning, Print Culture, and Confidence in Slavery in the Eighteenth-Century Mid-Atlantic.” William and Mary Quarterly 65 (1999): 243–72.Google Scholar
Wesley, John. The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley. Vol. 8. Ed. John Telford. London: Epworth, 1931.Google Scholar
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Rev. of The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Analytical Review May 1789.Google Scholar
Youngquist, Paul. “The Afro Futurism of DJ Vassa.” European Romantic Review 16 (2005): 181–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar