The Interesting Narrative

Olaudah Equiano
Edited by Brycchan Carey

Oxford World's Classics

A new edition of one of the most celebrated slave narratives, written by a former slave who went on to become a leading figure in the British abolitionist movement
Equiano's personal account of the horrors of slavery is also an exciting adventure story of his travels on the high seas, and as an explorer and merchant in the Caribbean, the Arctic, and America
Uses the lively 1789 first edition text
Brycchan Carey's introduction surveys Equiano's role in the abolition debate, the book's style and structure, recent debates about Equiano's birthplace and identity, and the book's increasingly central position among the great works of eighteenth-century literature
Includes explanatory notes, a glossary of unfamiliar terms, and a gazetteer of places mentioned

The Interesting Narrative

Olaudah Equiano
Edited by Brycchan Carey

Description

'I hope the slave trade may be abolished. I pray it may be an event at hand.'

Published a few days before the British parliament first debated the abolition of the slave trade in 1789, Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative gives the author's account of his enslavement after his childhood kidnapping in Africa, and his journey from slavery to freedom. Equiano was slave to a captain in the Royal Navy, and later to a Quaker merchant, and he vividly depicts the appalling treatment of enslaved people at sea and on land. He takes part in naval engagements, is shipwrecked, and has other exciting adventures on his travels to the Caribbean, America, and the Arctic.

Equiano claimed his own freedom and became an important abolitionist, but his Narrative is much more than merely a political pamphlet. The most important African autobiography of the eighteenth century, it has achieved an increasingly central position among the century's great works of literature.

The introduction to this edition surveys recent debates about Equiano's birthplace and identity, and considers his campaigning role and literary achievements.

The Interesting Narrative

Olaudah Equiano
Edited by Brycchan Carey

Oxford World's Classics

Author Information

Olaudah Equiano

Edited by Brycchan Carey, Northumbria University

Brycchan Carey is an expert in the cultural history of slavery and its abolition. He is the author of From Peace to Freedom: Quaker Rhetoric and the Birth of American Antislavery, 1658-1761 (Yale UP, 2012), and British Abolitionism and the Rhetoric of Sensibility: Writing, Sentiment, and Slavery, 1760-1807 (Palgrave, 2005). His most recent collection, Quakers and Abolition, co-edited with Geoffrey Plank, was published by the University of Illinois Press in 2014.

The Interesting Narrative

Olaudah Equiano
Edited by Brycchan Carey

Oxford World's Classics

Reviews and Awards

"The appetite for Equiano and his memoir shows no signs of abating, as this new edition shows." - James Walvin, The Times

"The book adds to the body of knowledge about a great man, Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, The African. Students now have a wider chose of resources as they study his complex but interesting life." - Arthur Torrington, The Equiano Society

"This book will change our assumptions about slavery and affect, and also change our sense of what works can be connected to this vast enterprise. It makes for what is sometimes surprising reading, but it also makes so much sense that the century will never again look quite the same as it did before this book." - George E. Haggerty, SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900

"This edition of Equiano's The Interesting Narrative, paired with Carey's introduction and explanatory materials, provides a text that is meaningful across educational levels and backgrounds. It should help to ensure that Equiano's text, with its relevance to multiple disciplines and areas of inquiry, does not again disappear from our awareness." - International Journal of African Historical Studies