please scroll down for article - harriet...

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

This article was downloaded by: [York University Libraries]On: 14 August 2009Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 791654236]Publisher RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Slavery & AbolitionPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713719071

The publishing history of Olaudah Equiano's interesting narrativeJames Green a

a Library Company of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Online Publication Date: 01 December 1995

To cite this Article Green, James(1995)'The publishing history of Olaudah Equiano's interesting narrative',Slavery & Abolition,16:3,362— 375

To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/01440399508575167

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01440399508575167

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf

This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial orsystematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply ordistribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.

The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contentswill be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug dosesshould be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss,actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directlyor indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713719071

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01440399508575167

http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf

REFLECTIONS

The Publishing History of OlaudahEquiano's Interesting Narrative

JAMES GREEN

The relatively new discipline of the history of the book has deepened ourunderstanding of the complex role that printing has played in Westernsociety and culture since the Renaissance, and in many cases it has madehistorians more critical in evaluating their source material when thosesources happen to be printed books. In trying to assess the historicalsignificance of a text, historians are now asking some new questions alongwith their old ones: what social and cultural forces transformed that text intoa printed artefact, how was it disseminated and to whom, and how was itappropriated by its readers. At least partial answers to such questions can befound by investigating the publishing history of the text. More often thannot, however, there are no pertinent archival sources available, no papers ofthe publisher or the author, no letters or diaries of readers. In such cases, thebest source of information is the book itself, as many copies of as manyeditions as can be found. More than most artefacts, books contain cluesabout their own origins and life-cycles. This information can then becombined with what is known about the book trade in general, and aboutother books of the same type, to construct a narrative of the book'spublishing history.This article uses such an approach to investigate the publishing history of

The Interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa,the African. This book was one of the first points of contact betweenAfrican narrative and Western print culture, and it was a prototype of auniquely African-American literary genre, the slave narrative. The impactof slave narratives on the American anti-slavery movement and on thedevelopment of African-American literature was profound. Yet if we lookat the American reception of Equiano's narrative, we find something verypuzzling: it was first published in America in 1791, and it was not reprintedthere until 1837. Why was this book ignored for 46 years, the general anti-slavery spirit of the time notwithstanding? Was it particularly difficult forAfrican-Americans to publish their works? Is there anything that can be saidabout how this book and this African writer interacted with the print cultureof the time that would explain this perplexing reception?1 In order to

James Green is at the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1314 Locust St., Philadelphia, PA19107-5696, USA.

Slavery and Abolition, Vol.16, No.3, December 1995, pp.362-375PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON

Downloaded By: [York University Libraries] At: 20:09 14 August 2009

OLAUDAH EQUIANO'S INTERESTING NARRATIVE 363

suggest some possible answers to these questions, I propose to construct anarrative about the publication of Equiano's autobiography, and then toconstruct another even more speculative narrative about how it was notpublished.

Though this narrative was prompted by questions about the Americanreception of Equiano's autobiography, it needs to be stressed at the outsetthat in several senses this was not an American book. It was written inEngland by an English citizen and was addressed to an English audience. Itwas first published not in America but in England. Nor was the setting orsubject matter of the book American, if we mean the territory that was tobecome the United States. Equiano spent only a few weeks on a Virginiaplantation when he was first enslaved, and after that he only occasionallycalled as a sailor at Savannah, Philadelphia, or New York. Most of the yearsof his enslavement (from ages 10 to 21) were spent in England, in the WestIndies, or at sea; and when he bought his freedom in 1766 he immediatelyreturned to England, which was his home for the rest of his life, betweenvoyages to exotic places ranging from Smyrna to Greenland. The narrativeof the publishing history of Equiano's autobiography must begin inEngland.

The Interesting Narrative was first published in London, in 1789, in twovolumes (about 530 pages) in the small duodecimo format, like a typicalmemoir or novel. Before the year was out, a second edition was printed, anda third in 1790. Then there was a fourth edition in Dublin in 1791, a fifth inEdinburgh in 1792, two more in London in 1793, an eighth in Norwich anda ninth in London in 1794. During those years it was also translated intoDutch, German, and Russian.2 Whatever the book's reception may havebeen in America, it was a best-seller in the British Isles, in fact probably oneof the best-selling new books of that half decade, if we reckon sales crudelyby the number of editions. It was noticed in most of the London reviews,sometimes quite enthusiastically, sometimes a bit disdainfully, but always itwas taken seriously.'

It was not at all difficult for Equiano to get access to the press inEngland. Like many other writers at the time, he used the subscriptionmethod to publish his book. Before the book was even set in type, hepersonally approached hundreds of people and got them to pledge to buy acopy. At that time it was no longer customary to ask subscribers to pay inadvance. Once he had enough people signed up to cover the expenses of theedition, he arranged to have it printed at his own expense and distributeddirectly to the people on his list. In short, he was his own publisher. Theconventional language of the imprint of the first edition conveys this; itreads, 'London: Printed for and sold by the Author', and then gives whatappears to be his home address.


364 SLAVERY & ABOLITION

This does not mean that the regular book trade was not involved in theventure. Below the imprint in finer print is a list of a dozen of the mostestablished City and West End booksellers, who also sold the book.Assuming this was a typical subscription book, these booksellers acted asthe author's agents, soliciting subscriptions, receiving money, anddistributing the books on his behalf, probably for a commission. Thebooksellers also bought extra copies for sale to non-subscribers or forwholesaling in the trade. But in the end Equiano still was the publisher inthe sense that he had to bear the costs of production and was liable for anyloss if the edition failed to sell - though of course the work he had put intogathering subscriptions made that highly unlikely.

The subscription method of publishing dated back to the earlyseventeenth century in England, but it had first been used extensively byAlexander Pope in the early part of the eighteenth century to publish hismonumental translation of Homer. This was an extension of the ancientsystem of aristocratic patronage of literature into the public sphere of print.After the middle of the century, subscription was being used to publish farmore plebeian books, and subscribers were recruited from all ranks ofsociety. It became quite common for people who had suffered misfortune orinjustice to publish their autobiographies (sometimes disguised as novels)and solicit subscriptions from the compassionate as a refined form ofbegging a living. Subscription was also being used to raise money forcharity and various worthy causes. In Equiano's time it was the mostcommon mode of publication used by unknown or amateur authors. Moreand more professional authors were selling their copyrights to publishers,and letting them take the risk and make the profit. But an unknown authorwould have been lucky to get 20 pounds for his copyright; for such a writer,the subscription route was more advantageous.4

It was customary for a printed list of the subscribers to appear in thebook, to flatter the subscribers, to induce them to accept and pay for thebook, and to advertise to non-subscribers the distinguished patronage theedition had received. Equiano's subscription list has 311 names, and sincesome subscribed for multiple copies, it accounts for 350 copies. The listincludes not only the intellectuals and abolitionists one would expect(Thomas Clarkson, Ottobah Cugoano, Hannah More, James Ramsay,William Sancho [son of Ignatius], Granville Sharpe, Josiah Wedgwood,John Wesley) but also three members of the royal family, a score of Dukesand Earls, several Bishops, and assorted Lords, Hons., Revs., and MP's.Since Pope, subscription authors all vied for this sort of noble patronage;Equiano was more successful than most.

We do not know the size of the edition, but since it was also sold to non-subscribers, it must have been considerably larger than 350; a good guess



would be 750. The retail price was 7s. to non-subscribers, and probably 6s.to subscribers, since they usually got a reduction in the price. Assuming thebook's finances were fairly conventional, the cost of paper, printing, andbinding probably came to between and third and a half of the retail price,say about 3s. a copy. Equiano might therefore have had to pay over £100 forthe edition. He probably did not have to pay all of this up front; on thestrength of the subscription list, the printer would probably have allowedhim to defer full payment until he had had time to collect from thesubscribers. 350 copies at 6s. would have yielded £105, about the cost ofproduction. If there were 400 extra copies printed and sold at 7s., theywould have yielded another £140. Not all of this profit went to the author;the booksellers who acted as his agents would have claimed 10 per cent to20 per cent, and there would have been plenty of extra charges added to thebill for such things as advertising. Still, Equiano might have made as muchas £100 on the edition, a good middle-class income for a year.

I have been assuming that this was a typical subscription venture, thatEquiano was a normal subscription author. Did the fact that he was anAfrican make any difference? It must have, but I have no evidence. Weknow he presented himself to aristocrats and intellectuals countless times,promoting his book and the cause of abolition. The responses of subscribersare just as much worth documenting as the responses of readers.

After the success of the first edition, Equiano did something not quite sotypical. Many successful subscription authors were able to sell the copyrightfor subsequent editions for a handsome price, since the commercial worthof the book had been proven. Equiano did not do this, perhaps simplybecause he had been cheated by white businessmen all his life. The nexteight editions were also published with the imprint, 'printed for the author'.He continued his subscription campaign unabated. Many names were addedto the lists of subscribers printed in each edition. Some names were deletedas well, though the aristocratic and celebrity subscribers were mostlyperennial, a testimonial of the value of the book and its patronage. Equianoalso scoured the provinces in search of new if less illustrious subscribers:211 at Hull, 91 at Bristol, and 248 in Norwich for the edition printed there.For the Edinburgh edition he secured 159 subscribers, including most of theUniversity professors and many advocates. He spent over eight months inIreland promoting his Dublin edition, gathering 67 subscribers, but selling,by his own account, 1900 copies.5 If he meant that the Dublin edition was1900 copies, then his edition sizes were becoming quite large. It also seemsclear that by then subscription was accounting for only a small fraction ofhis sales. Everywhere he went he addressed abolitionist assemblies,promoting the cause and his book at the same time. He probably also leftlarge consignments for sale with local booksellers. He also got influential



local characters to endorse his book and authenticate his authorship inGlasgow, Cambridge, Bath, Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham, Durham,and Belfast; and he printed their letters of endorsement in the later editionsof his book. He was the most famous and influential black abolitionist inBritain, and his book was an integral part of his fame.6 Being an author wasa hard, full-time job, but not as hard as being a sailor, his earlier occupation.It also paid better; one of his two daughters inherited £950 on her twenty-first birthday.7

The ninth edition of 1794 was the last in Equiano's lifetime, for he diedin 1797. Without his tireless promotion, the book faded away for a time.Then in the decade after the abolition of the slave trade, it enjoyed a revivalin the provinces, with at least eight more editions appearing mostly in thenorth of England, in the towns where new industrial factories werespringing up. Though Equiano hardly mentions plantation slavery, it is easyto imagine that people whose lives were being transformed by Americancotton would continue to have an interest in the social conditions underwhich it was produced, even if Britain was no longer directly concerned inthe slave trade. Equiano had had many patrons in the North, and it seemsthat this was where his book still had the most relevance and the greatestmarket. Equiano's new reading public probably comprised abolitionists aswell as dissenters and political radicals. The role this book may have playedin the growing political self-awareness of manufacturers and mechanicsremains to be explored.

None of these provincial editions had a list of subscribers or any othersign of patronage. They seem to have been published as commercialventures based on an entrepreneur's feel for the local book market.Provincial printers tended to subsist on the gaps in the market whichLondon publishers were unable or unwilling to fill.' A great many booksthat had gone out of print and into the public domain were reprinted in theprovinces, partly because London publishers were reluctant to invest inworks for which they could not secure a copyright or some equivalentprotection of literary property, but also because provincial readers were notas demanding of novelty as metropolitan ones. During his lifetime, Equianohad reached these various provincial markets by collecting subscriptions ashe travelled; now a number of provincial publishers, each familiar with hisown local market, were doing together what no single London publisherwas able or willing to do.

The first of these provincial editions appeared in the town of Belper,Derbyshire, in 1809, with a preface signed by an anonymous editor in thenearby village of Milford. Since the 1770s, Belper had been transformedfrom a village to the second-largest town in the county by the erection ofseveral cotton mills. The owners of the mills were the Strutt family, now in



their second generation of wealth and on their way to becoming notableliberals and philanthropists, friends of such people as Jeremy Bentham andMaria Edgeworth. The editor seems to have been a clergyman, possibly aUnitarian, judging from his extended apology for Equiano's predestinarianviews. The editor's village of Milford consisted (according to acontemporary county history) of a bleaching mill, housing for its workers,a Strutt family mansion, and a single chapel sponsored by the Strutts.9

Perhaps the editor was the Strutt's chaplain.The Belper edition was reprinted with the same preface by another

printer in Penryn, near Falmouth in the far west of England, in 1815 and1816. Falmouth was a very different place, but again one can imagine anaudience: it was a Quaker stronghold and the first port visited by manytransatlantic vessels, in fact the place Equiano first set foot in England. (Thenarrative describes his astonishment at the buildings of the town and thesnow on the streets.)

Back in the North, there were four more editions (or at least reissues ofthe same sheets) in Halifax, Yorkshire, between 1812 and 1819. The printer,J. Nicholson,'" also printed the works of two other African-Americanwriters with English connections, Phillis Wheatley and John Marrant." Thissuggests that the source of the interest of these books, at least to theirpublisher and presumably to the provincial reading public, was their veryAfricanness. Finally, there was an edition in Leeds in 1814, the imprint ofwhich lists the important London booksellers Cradock and Joy as agents;this edition may have had more than local distribution.

Equiano's narrative was not again printed in London for a nationalaudience until the 1820s, and then it was not the full text but a drasticallyabridged paraphrase of 12 pages in the two-penny tract series 'The Negro'sFriend'. This series was subsidized by abolitionist philanthropists. In theintroduction, the editors of the series wrote, 'Though the facts which arerelated in the following pages occurred thirty or forty years ago, yet theypresent a lively picture of the present state of things in the West Indies.' Thisnew generation of abolitionists evidently felt that these 12 pages heldeverything from the two-volume original that was still relevant to theirmovement. In this form Equiano's text took on another few years of usefullife; how many years is not known, since these tracts were undated andreprinted regularly.

When we turn from the English reception of Equiano's autobiography tothe American, the contrast is startling. This was what prompted the inquiryin the first place: it was reprinted in New York in 1791, and there was notanother edition until 1837. How are we to interpret this seemingly coolAmerican reception? Was there so little interest in African writing, thegeneral anti-slavery spirit of the time notwithstanding? The American



publishing history of the book provides at least a partial answer to thesequestions.

The American copyright law of 1790 protected books written byAmericans, but all other books, including this one, could be reprintedwithout the author's permission and without restriction by copyright.Equiano was not involved in the New York edition in any way. He did noteven learn of its existence until a year after it was published. He was gladto hear about it, but he apparently did not expect to profit by it.12

In the quite limited American book market of the early 1790s, very fewEnglish books were reprinted in America, and most of those were alreadyestablished steady sellers. Equiano's narrative stands out as the only newEnglish literary work reprinted in America in 1791. In fact, of all the newliterary works that had been published in London since the appearance ofthe first edition three years before, Equiano's was the only one that had beenselected for reprinting in America by 1791.l3 And if only a few Englishbooks were reprinted in America in that period, only a tiny handful werereprinted more than once. This was also true of American books. Usually asingle edition satisfied the market for years.14 With so many new bookspublished in England, and with more and more American writers seekingpublishers, most books only got a single chance. Occasionally anenterprising author could convince a publisher to reprint a book, perhaps bypaying part or all of the expenses; but a second edition of a book whoseauthor was dead or overseas was a rarity, with the exception of a few classicschool or religious books. When a book was reprinted, the type had to bereset, so the new edition cost just as much to produce as the first one, yet itwas an even riskier venture, since the sharpest part of the public appetite hadalready been satisfied and the novelty had worn off. The American bookmarket was not yet strong enough to sustain many steady sellers. Books byBritish and American abolitionist or African writers were certainly notexceptions to this rule; dozens of them were published in America between1790 and 1820, but only Phillis Wheatley's poems and Clarkson's history ofthe slave trade were printed more than once.

What this all suggests is that the American reception of Equiano'snarrative was actually fairly warm, given the limited American book marketand the formative state of the publishing business. The fact that it was notreprinted for decades is not in itself evidence of a lack of interest inabolition, or of any resistance to publishing African writing in America.However, it can not be denied that the British reception was of a differentorder altogether, even given the differences in the print cultures of the twocountries. Again this is not in itself evidence that it was easier for Africansto publish in England, or that the anti-slavery spirit was more vigorous overthere.



The factor that explains the difference is Equiano himself. In England hepromoted his book indefatigably; late in his life he successfully transformedhimself into a professional author. He also positioned his book at the centreof the abolition movement, which gave it both a constituency and a purpose.The American edition did not have the benefit of his personal presence, hispromotional skill and energy; and it was not effectually tied to the abolitionmovement. It was a more straightforward commercial venture, dependentless on patronage than on the impersonal forces of the open market.

The New York edition of Equiano's narrative was published by a youngman just starting in the printing and bookselling business named WilliamDurell. He was not specialized as an abolitionist publisher then or at anyfuture time in his long career,15 but he must have thought he could turn aprofit by publishing this book, whether because of the favourable Londonreviews and the rapid sale there, because of the abolitionist sentiment thatwas then strong in New York, because sales of imported copies had beenbrisk, or simply because he thought it was a story of universal appeal. Hismotives, apart from making money, remain obscure.

His edition was modelled not on the 7s. first edition, but rather on theone-volume 4s. third edition of 1790, and it sold for the roughly comparableprice of one dollar. The New York edition was also published bysubscription, and a list of subscribers precedes the text. This does not meanthat Equiano had anything to do with the venture. A publisher could mounta subscription drive just as well as an author; advance subscription helpedthe publisher judge the market, and it greatly minimized the risk andspeeded up the distribution of copies and the collecting of money. Usuallybooksellers in other cities were enlisted as agents who gatheredsubscriptions and distributed the books when published; or individualscould subscribe for multiple copies on behalf of friends or neighbours.

Durell's list of subscribers was completely different from Equiano's.There were, no luminaries, no American counterparts of his royals andnobles, indeed hardly anyone whose identity can be established with anycertainty. There were hardly even any prominent abolitionists. MatthewClarkson, who signed a petition to Congress on behalf of the New Yorkabolition society at the end of 1790, is not on the list. Of the 31 delegates tothe 1794 convention of state abolition societies, only one was a subscriber,Rev. William Rogers, Professor of English in the College of Philadelphia.Durell used subscription not as a way to gain patronage from the abolitionmovement, but as a routine way of marketing his edition.16

The list records a total of 127 people subscribing for 335 copies. Notsurprisingly, about a quarter of the copies subscribed were in New YorkCity, and another 15 per cent in the surrounding areas up the Hudson, onLong Island, and in New Jersey." Many of the names appear in the city



directories, most of them artisans or merchants in a small way. Some wereclose neighbours of Durell, or members of his family, while several otherswere members of the book trades, including the man who engraved theportrait of Equiano that faces the title (perhaps, by the way, the earliestAmerican engraved portrait of an African). Otherwise no patterns emergefrom analysis of the subscribers by occupation or address. I have had moresuccess identifying New York subscribers by church membership. Two ofthe subscribers were well-known Baptist clergymen; a history of the FirstBaptist Church of New York reveals that the printer Durell was a memberof that congregation, and that half a dozen of his subscribers were churchleaders.'* The other religious group that stands out is the Friends. The listincludes several familiar Quaker names: Bowne, Loins, Mott, Pearsall,Stansbury, Smith, Sharpless, and Underhill, but again no famousabolitionists. This all suggests that Durell sought subscribers in churchesand meetings, among people likely to favour abolition. But if Durell gainedsome customers this way, he seems not to have secured the organized andsustained patronage by religious bodies and the abolition movement thatmade Equiano's English editions so successful.

Philadelphia is the next largest area with 105 copies subscribed or justover 30 per cent. Philadelphia was the most likely market for the book;indeed since virtually every other American anti-slavery imprint up to thatdate had come from the Philadelphia presses, one could even wonder whyEquiano's narrative was not published there instead of New York. But thereis no evidence that Durell attempted to have the Philadelphia Friends or theAbolition Society endorse his book or help sell it. One hundred of the 105Philadelphia copies were sold to one man, the bookseller Thomas Dobson,who acted as the Philadelphia agent in the venture. Durell did not evenchoose one of the Quaker booksellers to take this role, but rather thebookseller with the largest retail shop. Here is perhaps the clearestindication that Durell saw this as a purely commercial venture.

The oddest feature of the list is the large number of subscribers fromMiddletown, Connecticut and its vicinity. If New York and Philadelphiaaccount for 40 per cent and 30 per cent, Middletown accounts for virtuallyall the remaining 30 per cent. Why Middletown? Was it a hithertounrecognized hotbed of abolitionism? The key to understanding theMiddletown connection is Isaac Riley, a young man who had just opened ageneral store there. He subscribed for 60 copies personally, and he probablyalso drummed up most of the other 38 Connecticut subscribers. Riley waslater to move to New York and become one of the largest book publishersin the country; but at this point he was an obscure storekeeper who was juststarting out in the book business. Earlier in 1791 he had published achapbook in his own name, and an ad at the back of it lists five other little



books for sale at his store, a motley mix of sensational and sententiouspamphlets, none of them abolitionist. He was acting as agent for thosepublications as well as for Equiano's narrative ."

Riley never had any other association with the abolition movement in hislong career. His subscribing for so many copies, however, was completelyin character; in his later career he showed an uncanny ability to spot a bookthat would sell, but he often published more copies than he could"disposeof, and several times he went spectacularly bankrupt. Why did he think thisbook would sell in Middletown? He may have seen it not only as an anti-slavery book but also as the life and travels of a merchant sailor, a bookwhich described the day-to-day business in the West India trade in graphicdetail. Middletown at that time was a vital port for the West India trade, atown full of merchants, sailors, and shipwrights.

The leading Middletown West India men were the Alsops, one of therichest families in the country. They bankrolled Riley's store and bookbusiness, just as they later helped him to the top of the publishing business.Riley was engaged to be married to the their youngest daughter. His futuremother-in-law and two of his future brothers-in-law were among thesubscribers; one of the latter, 15-year-old John Alsop, subscribed for twelvecopies. John was then probably working in Riley's store; later he was apartner in his New York publishing business. The Alsops probablysubscribed simply to help their protege; they probably were notabolitionists. They were Episcopalians and (according to the 1790 census)among the largest slave holders in their vicinity. One fact about them isteasing, however: they freed their slaves in 1794. Could Equiano haveinfluenced them?20

The names on the subscribers' list account for only a fraction of thebook's American readers; we have no idea who bought Dobsons's 100copies in Philadelphia or Riley's 60. Moreover, the edition size must havebeen larger than the 335 copies subscribed, since subscription sales wouldhave covered the cost of print and paper, and extra copies were pure profit.These extra copies were distributed through the regular trade; I have foundthe edition advertised for sale by booksellers in Boston in 1798, in Albanyin 1796, and in New York as late as 1803.21 This suggests that the editionwas fairly large, perhaps a thousand, that it was widely distributed, that itstayed in print for a decade, and that by the time it had gone out of print, itwas, like most other books, largely forgotten.

If anyone would have remembered and possibly revived Equiano'sautobiography, it would have been the abolitionists. But after the abolitionof the slave trade in England, the American anti-slavery movement adoptedits own local political agenda, and was producing its own literature. With somany new works by Americans (many of them African-Americans) about



the immediate American situation to be printed, it is perhaps not surprisingthat an English book by an English writer of the previous generation was nota prime candidate for reprinting. Moreover, much of this writing was beingpublished in newspapers and pamphlets. These texts were not only up-to-date and pertinent, they were cheap, quick to read, and widely disseminated.Equiano's book was long and expensive, and the travels and adventures thatmade up over half the text must have seemed irrelevant. These facts alonemight explain why the American antislavery movement did not revive thebook.22

Yet it was not totally forgotten by the abolitionists; references to it didappear occasionally in anti-slavery publications. In 1810 an Americandiplomat in Paris, David Bailey Warden, published in Brooklyn histranslation of Henri Gregoire's Enquiry concerning the intellectual andmoral faculties, and literature, of Negroes, which included a few pagesabout Equiano. Lydia Maria Child copied these pages almost word for wordinto her enormously influential Appeal in favor of that class of Americanscalled Africans, 1833, reprinted 1836. Meanwhile in 1826, 14 pages ofquotations or paraphrases from Equiano had appeared in BiographicalSketches and Interesting Anecdotes of Persons of Color, compiled byAbigail Mott, aunt by marriage of Lucretia Mott. This book was widelyused in schools, especially African schools in New York and elsewhere, andwas often reprinted.23 In 1829 Mott published a slightly fuller selection fromthe narrative as a separate 36-page pamphlet, about the same size and priceas the English 'Negro's Friend' version, but a totally different text. Like theeditors of the English tract version, Mott may have felt that the best way toreuse this text to promote abolition was to boil it down to a penny pamphlet,removing all the dated material, the English references, the travels andadventures, and the not very Quakerish religious speculation. In so doing,she transformed the book into a perfect exemplar of the slave narrative asthe genre was then evolving.

Lydia Maria Child apparently had not been able to procure a copy ofEquiano's narrative when she wrote her Appeal; she wrote that the book was'said to be' well-written, and she misspelled Equiano's first name,following a misprint in the Brooklyn edition of Gregoire. But Abigail Mottdid have access to the book, and we can speculate on how she got her copy.One of the subscribers to the 1791 edition was Robert Mott of New York,for two copies. He was Abigail's brother-in-law, and it is likely that one ofthose copies came into her hands, and that she used it to prepare herBiographical Sketches 35 years later.24

The reprinting of Equiano's narrative in 1837 was the culmination of thissuccession of brief quotations in other books, the direct result of its beingvouched for by figures such as Mott and Child.25 The publisher was a



leading abolitionist printer, Isaac Knapp of Boston. This edition thereforehad the organized support of the abolition movement that Durell had nevermanaged to garner. Other factors were favourable to Equiano's book at thismoment. The anti-slavery movement had recently taken a new militantform, which led to more agitation than at any time since the 1790s. Now thepress was playing a far larger role in the movement. Not only books aboutslavery, but also books by Africans were appearing in droves. Equiano'snarrative could now be seen, as it could not have been in the 1790s, as theprototypical slave narrative. Moreover, a new mass market for books hademerged, capable of sustaining a variety of steady-sellers as well as therevival of old texts. Book production reached an all-time high, just beforethe Panic of 1837 burst the bubble. For the first time since 1791, everythingwas in place: this was the perfect moment to reprint Equiano.

If the publishing history of Equiano's narrative up to 1837 now seemssomewhat less perplexing, its publishing history after 1837 raises a new setof questions which are far more perplexing, questions which for now willhave to remain unanswered. Why, after his propitious rediscovery in 1837,did Equiano not finally find a place in the canon of African-Americanwriters? Why, after 1837, did his book again sink into oblivion, an oblivioneven deeper than before? Why was it not again reprinted in America oranywhere else until 1967, the general anti-slavery spirit of the timenotwithstanding?

NOTES

The posthumous editions are discussed below.

1. I am indebted to Richard Newman of the History Department of the State University of NewYork at Buffalo for raising these questions. He, along with Philip Lapsansky, RosalindRemer, Christopher Densmore, and Michael A. Morrison, read and commented on drafts ofthis article. I am grateful to them and also to Thomas C. Battle (Moorland-Spingarn ResearchCenter, Howard University), Charles Blockson (Blockson Collection, Temple University),and Roger Stoddard (Houghton Library, Harvard University) for providing access to copiesof Equiano's narrative in their collections.

2. This and subsequent bibliographical information is based on Dorothy B. Porter, 'EarlyAmerican Negro writings: A bibliographical study', PBSA 39:229-231. Porter lists 15editions; 10 other editions not noted by her (marked*) are located in the NUC or the RLINdatabase. The synopsis of editions, then, is:

London: Author, [1789],London: Author, [1789], 2nd ed.London: Author, 1790. 3rd ed.Rotterdam, Pieter Holsteyn, 1790. in Dutch.*New York: W. Durell, 1791Dublin: Author, 1791. 4th ed.



Edinburgh: Author, 1792, 5th ed.Göttingen: Johann Christian Dieterich, 1792, in German.*London: Author, 1793, 6th ed.London: Author, 1793, 7th ed.Norwich: Author, 1794, 8th ed.London: Author, 1794, 9th ed.Moscow: 1794, in Russian.*Belpen: S. Mason, 1809.*Halifax: J. Nicholson, 1812.*Halifax: J. Nicholson & Co., 1813.Halifax: J. Nicholson & Co., 1814.Leeds: James Nichols, 1814Penryn: W. Cock. 1815.Penryn: W. Cock, 1816.*Halifax: M. Garlick, 1819.*London: Harvey and Darton, 1820s? (12 pp.)*London: Depository at Gracechurch Street, 1820s? 2nd ed. (16 pp.) *New York: Samuel Wood & Sons, 1829 (36 pp.)Boston, Isaac Knapp, 1837.*

3. The reviews appeared in the Monthly Review, June 1789, the Gentleman's Magazine, June1789, and the General Magazine, July 1789. All three are quoted in Angelo Costanzo,Surprizing Narrative, New York, 1987, pp. 43-5.

4. For general information on subscription publishing, see David Foxon, Pope and the Early18th-century Book Trade (Oxford, 1991); Hugh Amory, 'Virtual Readers: The Subscribers toFielding's Miscellanies (1743)', Studies in Bibliography 48: 94-111; Donald Farren,'Subscription: A Study of the 18th-century American Book Trade', D.L.S. dissertation,Columbia, 1982.

5. Paul Edwards, 'Three West African Writers of the 1780s', in Charles T. Davis and HenryLouis Gates, Jr. (Eds.), The Slave's Narrative (New York, 1985), p.177.

6. Costanzo, p.43; Paul Edwards, 'Editor's introduction', Equiano's Travels (London, 1967),pp. xi-xii.

7. Edwards, p. 188.8. See John Feather, The Provincial Book Trade in Eighteenth-century England (Cambridge,

1985), pp. 109-21 for a discussion of provincial book printing and publishing at the end ofthe eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries.

9. David Peter Davies, A New Historical and Descriptive View of Derbyshire (Belpen S.Mason, 1811), pp.340-3. Mason was also the printer of the Belper edition of Equiano'sautobiography.

10. Some sources assume this was Halifax, Nova Scotia, but according to the ESTC, J.Nicholson & Co. was in Halifax, England, in the 1790s as the printer of the works of a localMethodist minister.

11. The publishing history of John Marrant's (1755-91) autobiographical Narrative is strangelysimilar to Equiano's. It went through some eight editions in London from 1785 to 1788 (onepublished by the author, the others by a printer not otherwise known as a publisher), as wellas an edition in Dublin in 1790. It too faded with the death of the author, though there wasone posthumous London edition in 1802. Then, after the abolition of the slave trade, itreappeared in the provinces: Halifax (Nicholson), 1808, 1812, 1813, and 1815: Leeds, 1810and 1815; Brighton, 1813 and 1829; Yarmouth, 1824; and then finally back to London in1835 and 1838. Marrant's Narrative was a pamphlet of about 40 pages, not comparable as apublishing venture to Equiano's book.

12. In the seventh edition (London 1793) the following passage was added (p. 359): 'Soon afterI returned to London, where I found persons of note From Holland and Germany, whorequested of me to go there; and I was glad to hear that an edition of my narrative had beenprinted in both places, also in New-York.'

13. Based on reading Charles Evans, American Bibliography, vols. 7-8 (Chicago, 1912).


OLAUDAH EQUIANO'S INTERESTING NARRATIVE 3 7 5

14. For example, in 1807, a Bolton, Massachusetts bookseller bought a remainder of about 300copies of a Quaker book (the life of John Richardson) which had been published inPhiladelphia in 1783, printed a new title page for them, and sold them by subscription in hisvicinity. (Cf. Evans 18158 and Shaw 13497.) I am indebted to Christopher Densmore for thisnot untypical example.

15. Durell did small printing jobs for various organizations in the 1790s - Quakers (Evans27522), Baptists (Evans 23151 and 25909), abolitionists (Evans 24231 and 26531),Methodists, etc. - without being exclusively tied to any of them. Most of the books hepublished at his own risk were religious works that appealed to all Protestants, especiallylavishly illustrated folio editions of Josephus and Fox's Book of Martyrs (Evans 24437 and26991). These last were also sold by subscription, but they were far larger and riskierventures than Equiano's narrative.

16. Abolition Societies, Memorials: presented to Congress, Philadelphia, 1792 (Evans 24536)and Minutes of the Proceedings of a Convention, Philadelphia, 1794 (Evans 26533)

17. I am indebted to Akiyo Ito of the University of North Carolina for looking up the New YorkCity subscribers in the city directories.

18. William Parkinson, Jubilee Sermon, containing a history of the origin of the First BaptistChurch in the city of New-York (New York, 1846). The clergyman subscribers were BurgessAllison of Bordentown, New Jersey and Durell's pastor, Benjamin Foster of the Gold StreetBaptist Church, New York.

19. George Gates Raddin, Jr., The New York of Hocquet Caritat and his Associates, 1797-1817(Dover, 1953), p.118.

20. Glee Krueger, 'A Middletown Cameo: Mary Wright Alsop and her Needlework', inConnecticut Historical Society Bulletin, No.52, p. 129.

21. See Thomas, Andrews, and Penniman, American Publications. Catalogue of books (Albany,1796) [Evans 31293]; Catalogue of Books, for sale ... by W.P. & L. Blake (Boston, 1798)[Evans 33428] and Hocquet Caritat, Explanatory Catalogue (New York, 1803). The first oneis priced, and lists Equiano's book for a dollar. So does Robert Campbell's catalogue for1796 (Philadelphia, 1796) [Evans 30153].

22. Tocqueville observed that compared with Europe, political expression in America took placeless in books and more in newspapers and pamphlets. Cf. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracyin America (New York, 1959), Vol.2, p. 111. I am indebted to Michael A. Morrison for thisreference.

23. It was reprinted in York, England in 1828, and in New York in 1837, 1838, 1839, 1850, 1854,1875, 1877, and 1882. These reprints were subsidized by a bequest from the American-bomEnglish Quaker Lindley Murray (1745-1826), whose textbooks sold millions of copies inEngland and America.

24. Thomas C. Cornell, Adam and Anne Mott: their ancestors and their descendants(Poughkeepsie, 1890), p.210.

25. A review of the Boston edition of Equiano in the National Enquirer (20 July 1837) saysreaders of Child's Appeal will already be familiar with the book.


please scroll down for article - harriet...

Documents