Early Negro Writing

by Dorothy Porter Wesley, Dorothy Porter Wesley (aka)

A rare and indispensable collection of writings with literary, social and historical importance. Included are documents from mutual aid and fraternal organization, arguments about emigration, and selected narratives, poems, and essays.

660 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1995

Reviews

[Cara Byrne · Rating 3 out of 5]

As one of the earliest collections of early African American writing, Porter makes an important contribution to American history in editing this anthology. For the sake of my research, it's not necessarily the most useful collection, but it does offer a nice amount of background information and some interesting documents (i.e. "Address to Female Literary Association of Philadelphia" from 1832 and "The Duty of Females Signed by L.H." also from 1832). There are many transcripts of speeches and organization manifests/meeting notes, but there are several short stories and poems as well.

There is an incomplete version available to browse on Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=gaUF...