Three Great African-American Novels.

Locations
Call Number: Black Studies 813.07 Th
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Black Studies 813.07 Th	4-week checkout	On Shelf

"A new compilation of unabridged works from standard editions."
Originally published: Cleveland : John P. Jewett, 1853. London : Partridge & Oakey, 1853. Boston : Geo. C. Rand & Avery, 1859.
The heroic slave / Frederick Douglass -- Clotel / William Wells Brown -- Our Nig / Harriet E. Wilson.
Contents: Heroic slave. -- Clotel. -- Our Nig.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Three Great African American Novels submitted by leighsprauer on October 2, 2020, 8:41pm Three Great African American Novels (The Heroic Slave, Frederick Douglas; Clotel, William Wells Brown; Our Nig, Harriet E. Wilson) is a compilation of three short novels all concerning the lives of African Americans during the mid-19th century. All three were written by African Americans, the most famous being Frederick Douglas. The Heroic Slave and Clotel were more obviously written as moralistic treatises against slavery, based only partly in fact; Our Nig is a autobiographical novel of a free but indentured Black woman.
The Heroic Slave follows the life of one escaped, and recaptured slave, as well as the sympathetic northern abolitionist who helped him at times. Douglas' extremely flowery language and over-the-top hyperbole is very typical of the time, but makes the story seem somewhat quaint to a modern reader. I recommend it for its historical importance due to its authorship, and perhaps as an introductory novel for someone learning about American history, but as a piece of literature it is wanting.
Clotel is the somewhat disjointed tale of a slave girl named Clotel, her family, and the various people who intersected her life. It is almost as heavy-handedly a moralistic treatise as The Heroic Slave, and with similar flowery language. However, since it tells the stories of several people - slaves, slaveowners, Northerners, Southern abolitionists - it is more like a series of stories rather than a unified novel. It was during Clotel that I put the book down and only forced myself to pick it up several weeks later; it's just kind of a slog, and is hard to recommend.
Our Nig is a well-written account of a Northern Black servant girl, Frado, and her desperate, difficult life. She is employed by a family with both sympathetic and unsympathetic members: beaten and overworked by the mother and one sister, befriended and taught by two brothers and an aunt. Clearly she doesn't see all white people as the enemy, but is still aware, and ashamed of, her inferior status as a Black person. I don't know whether to recommend this or not. As one of the first novels by a Black Woman in America, it certainly has historical import, and is valuable as a description of the life of a Black servant. (And, I might add, as a description of life in general in the mid-19th century: the fragile health and closeness of death, of both whites and Blacks, is sometimes forgotten.) So sure, go ahead and read it.