Soane, George. Pride Shall Have a Fall; A Comedy, in Five Acts—with Songs. London: Hurst, Robinson, & Co., 1824.
54. Dickens, Charles. American Notes. New York: Wilson and Company, 1842.
55. Lever, Charles J. The Knight of Gwynne. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson and Bros., 1844.
56. Lever, Charles J. Arthur O’Leary. Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1847. (Also New York: W. H. Colyer, 1847.)
57. Gore, Mrs. (Catherine Grace Frances Gore). The Banker’s Wife; or, Court and City, A Novel … New York: Harper, 1843.
58. Grey, Mrs. (Elizabeth Caroline). The Gambler’s Wife. A Novel. New York: Harper, 1845.
59. Grey, Mrs. (Elizabeth Caroline). The Little Wife. A Record of Matrimonial Life … Complete in One Volume. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson, 1840.
60. Grey, Mrs. (Elizabeth Caroline). The Duke and the Cousin. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson, 1850.
61. Grey, Mrs. (Elizabeth Caroline). Fanny Thornton, or Marriage, a Lottery. New York: W. H. Graham, 1849.
62. Wheeler records Sketches of Everyday Life as a title. This is most likely
Dickens, Charles. Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Everyday Life and Everyday people. London: Chapman and Hall, 1850.
63. Scott, Harriett Anne. The Hen-pecked Husband. New York: H. Long and Brothers, 1848.
64. Wheeler records this title as Nina Brewer. Though no such titles appear in the LOC, OCLC, or National Union catalogues, some possibilities for this entry are
Brewer, Nicholas. A narrative of the life and sufferings of Nicholas Brewer, of the town of Cardiff, in the county of Glamorgan, master mariner, and of the oppressions he has suffered at the hands of the Custom House officers of the said town of Cardiff, by their wrongfully seizing and detaining his vessel, under the false and malicious pretence of her bowsprit being longer than by law allowed, whereas it was upwards of three feet under the length prescribed by the act: together with copies of correspondence between the said Brewer, and the Hon. the Commissioners of Customs, the secretary to the Right Hon. the Lords of the Treasury, &c.: also, a copy of the case as laid before Samuel Marriott, Esq. and his opinion thereon. England: s.n., 1823.
Female marine. The Adventures of Lucy Brewer, Alias Louisa Baker. Boston: Printed for N. Coverly, 1816. (This book was published in over twenty-five American editions.)
65. Oxenford, John, tr. Tales from the German, Comprising Specimens from the Most Celebrated Authors. Translated by John Oxenford and C. A. Feiling. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1844. 66. Wheeler records The Jew as a title. Some possibilities for this record are
Cumberland, Richard. The Jew, a Comedy, in Five Acts. Philadelphia: T. H. Palmer, 1823.
The Jew, At Home and Abroad. Revised by the Committee of Publication. Philadelphia: American Sunday-School Union, 1845.
The Jew, by the author of “The Egyptian.” Philadelphia: James Callen & Sons [date unknown, but is between 1844 and 1858].
(This is a juvenile book.)
Spindler, Carl tr. The Jew: Translated from the German. New York: Harper & Bros., 1844.
67. Mayhew, Horace. Whom to Marry and How to Get Married, or, the Adventures of a Lady in Search of a Good Husband. London: D. Bogue, 1847–48. (Published at the office of the New York World in 1848.)
68. Blanchard, Jerrold and Hablot Knight Browne. The Disgrace to the Family, a Story of Social Distinctions. London: Darton and Co., 1848.
69. À Beckett, Gilbert Abbott and George Cruikshank. The Comic Blackstone. Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1844.
70. Texas and Her President.
71. Grey, Mrs. (Elizabeth Caroline). The Belle of the Family. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson, 1843.
72. Brackenridge, Hugh Henry. Modern Chivalry, Containing the Adventures of Captain Farrago and Teague O’Regan. Philadelphia: Printed and sold by John M’Culloch, 1792–97.
73. Wheeler records Animal Magnetism as a title. Some possibilities for this entry are
Animal Magnetism: Its History to the Present Time. London: Dyer, 1841.
Animal Magnetizer, or History, Phenomena and Curative Effects of Animal Magnetism, with Instruction for Conducting the Magnetic Operation by a Physician. Philadelphia: J. Kav. Jun. and Brother, 1841.
Bell, John. Animal Magnetism: Past Fictions—Present Science. Philadelphia: Haswell, 1837.
Inchbald, Elizabeth Simpson. Animal Magnetism: A Farce, in Three Acts. Philadelphia: Neal and Mackenzie, Mifflin and Parry, printers, 1828.
Lang, William and Chauncey Hare Townshend. Animal Magnetism; or, Mesmerism; Its History, Phenomena, and Present Condition; Containing Practical Instructions and the Latest Discoveries in the Science. New York: Mowatt, 1844.
Leger, Theodore. Animal Magnetism; or, Psycodunamy. New York: D. Appleton: Philadelphia: G. S. Appleton; 1846.
74. Wheeler records Love and Marriage as a title. Some possibilities for this entry include
Buckston, John Baldwin. The Rake and His Pupil, or, Folly, Love, and Marriage, A Comedy in Three Acts. London: W. Strange, 1834.
Hale, Sarah. “The love marriage,” in The Token. New York: Edwards, 1842.
Snyder, George. Love, Courtship and Marriage. Baltimore: F. P. Audoun, 1829.
75. Philipon, Charles, Louis Huart and Eugène Sue. The Comic Wandering Jew. New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1840.
BRYAN C. SINCHE is currently a doctoral student in early-American literature and American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; he also holds a B.A. in English from the University of Michigan. He is the managing editor of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies and conducts research in nineteenth-century American life writing.
A NOTE ON CRAFTS’S LITERARY INFLUENCES
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Bryan Sinche’s compilation of the belletristic texts in John Hill Wheeler’s library provides a rare opportunity for scholars to trace with great specificity the echoes, allusions, and borrowings that this exslave drew upon to construct her novel. Among the authors that Crafts appropriated and revised, Dickens seems to have been second to none.
Wheeler’s library, as of June 10, 1850, included three books by Dickens—The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge, American Notes, and probably, Sketches by Boz. It is quite likely that Wheeler obtained a copy of Bleak House when it was published in America in 1853, after being serialized in 1852 and 1853. As Hollis Robbins, a graduate student at Princeton, pointed out to me, Dickens— and Bleak House in particular—was a fertile source for Hannah Crafts. For example, The Bondwoman’s Narrative contains several borrowings from Bleak House, some verbatim or nearly so, as in the following two examples: 331
Bondwoman’s Narrative Bleak House
Gloom everywhere. Gloom up the Potomac; where it rolls among meadows no longer green, and by splendid country seats. Gloom down the Potomac where it washes the sides of huge warships. Gloom on the marshes, the fields, and heights. Gloom settling steadily down over the sumptuous habitations of the rich, and creeping through the cellars of the poor. Gloom arresting the steps of grave and reverend Senators; for with fog, and drizzle, and a sleety driving mist the night has come at least two hours before its time… Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners….Most of the shops lighted two hours before their time… (Chapter 1)
Is it a stretch of imagination to say that by night they contained a swarm of misery, that crowds of foul existence crawled in out of gaps in walls and boards, or coiled themselves to sleep on nauseous heaps of straw fetid with human perspiration and where the rain drips in, and the damp airs of midnight fatch and carry malignant fevers…. Now, these tumbling tenements contain, by night, a swarm of
misery. As on the ruined human wretch, vermin parasites appear, so, these ruined shelters have bred a crowd of foul existence that crawls in and out of gaps in walls and boards; and coils itself to sleep, in maggot numbers, where the rain drips in; and comes and goes, fetching and carrying fever…. (Chapter 16)
No doubt further investigation of the works listed above will unearth additional example of Crafts’s influences and borrowings, and lead to a richer understanding of the sources from the canon of American and English literature that inspired a fugitive slave to dare to tell her tale.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Allibone, S. Austin, ed. Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1897.
Andrews, William L. To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of Afro-American Autobiography. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1986.
Anonymous. The Sisters of Orleans: A Tale of Race and Social Conflict. New York: Putnam, 1871.
Arnim, Ludwig Achim, Freiherr von. Isabella von Ägypten. 1812.
Bigelow, Harriet Hamline. The Curse Entailed. Boston: Wentworth, 1857.
Blassingame, John W. Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977.
Brown, William Wells. Clotel. London: Partridge and Oakley, 1853.
Burkett, Randall and Nancy and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The Black Biographical Dictionary Index. Alexandria, Va.: Chadwyck Healy, 1985.
The Case of Passmore Williamson. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, 1855.
Cathey, Cornelius Oliver. Agricultural Developments in North Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1956.
Child, Lydia Maria. The Romance of the Republic. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
Clemens, Samuel L. Pudd’nhead Wilson. Hartford: American Publishing Co., 1894.
Davis, David Brion. “The Enduring Legacy of the South’s Civil War Victory.” New York Times, August 26, 2001.
Denison, Mary. Old Hepsy. New York: A. B. Burdick, 1858.
Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1928–58.
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Boston: Anti-Slavery Office, 1845.
———. The Heroic Slave. Boston: Jewett, 1853.
Elwin, Lizzy M. Millie, the Quadroon. Clyde, Ohio: Ames’ Publishing Co., 1888.
Fabian, Ann. The Unvarnished Truth: Personal Narratives in Nineteenth-Century America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
Findling, John E., ed. Dictionary of American Diplomatic History, 2d ed., rev. and expanded. New York: Greenwood Press, 1989.
Foster, Frances Smith. Written by Herself: Literary Production by African American Women, 1746–1892. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.
———. Witnessing Slavery: The Development of Ante-Bellum Slave Narratives. 2d ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994.
———, ed. Minnie’s Sacrifice, Sowing and Reaping, Trial and Triumph: Three Rediscovered Novels by Frances E. W. Harper (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994).
Frazier, E. Franklin. Black Bourgeoisie. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1957.
Griffith, Mattie. Autobiography of a Female Slave. Jackson: University of Mississippi, 1998 [1856].
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Phenomenology of Spirit. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.
Hildreth, Richard. The Slave: or Memoirs of Archy Moore. Boston: J. H. Eastburn, 1836.
———. The White Slave: or, Memoirs of a Fugitive. London: Ingram, Cooke and Company, 1852.
Ingraham, Joseph Holt. The Quadroone; or, St. Michael’s Day. New York: Harper, 1841.
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Edited by Jean Fagan Yellin. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987.
Keckley, Elizabeth. Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House. New York: G. W. Carleton, 1868.
Klauprect, Emil. Cincinnati, or The Mysteries of the West. [New York: Peter Lang, 1996], 1857.
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Nickell, Joe. Pen, Ink & Evidence: A Study of Writing and Writing Materials for the Penman, Collector, and Document Detective. New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 1990.
———. Detecting Forgery: Forensic Investigation of Documents. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996.
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———. The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Presenting the Original Facts and Documents Upon Which the Story Is Founded. Boston: Jewett, 1853.
———. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Boston: Jewett, 1852.
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———. A Legislative Manual of North Carolina. 1874.
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———. “New Jersey,” in Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, edited by Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith, and Cornel West. New York: Macmillan, 1996.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Several colleagues generously assisted in the search for Hannah Crafts. Richard Newman attended the Swann auction to bid for Crafts’s manuscript on my behalf. Nina Kollars typed the manuscript, which she and Newman proofed orally. Kollars also prepared a list of the novel’s characters, and suggested that I search the censuses for Hannah Vincent. Newman was especially helpful in researching the history of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in New Jersey. Wyatt Houston Day, Kenneth Rendell, Dr. Joe Nickell, Leslie Morris, and Craigen Bowen shared their expert opinions about the date of Hannah Crafts’s manuscript. Nina Kollars and Kevin Rabener searched the Internet for signs of Crafts, combing genealogical websites and CD-ROM databases.
Lisa Finder, Esme Bahn, Paul Abruzzo, and Claudia Hill painstakingly researched census records in the National Archives; Lisa F
inder and Tim Bingaman expertly researched various records available only at the Mormon Family History Library; Esme Bahn and Nina Kollars pursued various leads at the Library of Congress, where Kollars photocopied John Hill Wheeler’s entire diary by hand. Sheldon Cheek and Brian Sinche transcribed and searched Wheeler’s diary and chronology for the years 1854–1861; Sinche pointed out the presence of a slave named “Esther” in one of Wheeler’s 1857 entries, and Cheek analyzed points of overlap between the diary and the novel.
My colleagues William L. Andrews, Nina Baym, Sterling Bland, Rudolph Byrd, Lawrence Buell, Vincent Carretta, Karen Dalton, David Brion Davis, Ann Fabian, Frances Smith Foster, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Gene Jarrett, Matthew Lee, David Levering Lewis, Robert E. May, Nellie Y. McKay, Richard Newman, Susan O’Donovan, Terri Oliver, Tom Parramore, Augusta Rohrbach, Bryan Sinche, Werner Sollors, and Jean Fagan Yellin read the manuscript of The Bondwoman’s Narrative, shared their theories about its origin, and patiently tolerated my phone calls during which we would brainstorm about possible avenues of research. Terri Oliver analyzed the novel’s plot elements and assisted with the annotation of the text. Richard Newman offered an analysis of the representation of black characters in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Joanne Kendall, my expert and devoted secretary, typed several drafts of my introduction, the textual annotations, notes, and appendixes. Professor Arthur R. Miller, the Bruce Bromley Professor of Law at Harvard, offered keen advice about copyright law governing an unpublished nineteenth-century manuscript. My editor, Jamie Raab, brought enormous sensitivity to a very complex editorial process.
Tina Bennett, my agent, believed in this project from the day I purchased the manuscript at auction. Laurence Kirshbaum expressed tremendous enthusiasm and encouragement for this project from the first day I discussed it with him, introduced me to Kenneth Rendell and Dr. Joe Nickell, and engaged their services to authenticate Hannah Crafts’s manuscript.
Sharon Adams, Henry Finder, Tina Bennett, William Andrews, Angela De Leon, and Richard Newman read and critiqued various drafts of my account of the quest to find Hannah Crafts. My indebtedness to each will be difficult to repay.
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