COVE

1789 saw the publication of Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African. Exact month of publication unknown; if you have information about the correct date, please email felluga@purdue.edu with this information. The book describes Equiano's time as a slave and his life after achieving his freedom. Image: Engraving for Equiano's Interesting Narrative. This image is in the public domain in the United States as its copyright has expired.

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Isaac Land, “On the Foundings of Sierra Leone, 1787-1808″

"File:Olaudah Equiano - Project Gutenberg eText 15399 (cropped).png." Wikimedia Commons. 29 Jul 2022, 00:01 UTC. 7 May 2025, 00:56 <commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.…(cropped).png&oldid=678503901>.

Olaudah Equiano's 1789 memoir "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa the African, Written by Himself" in its religious mysticism, brings light to the experience of an ensalved person in England, and tells the story of how he freed himself. It was particularly important because it was, written by himself, in his perspective. He lived through the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade, and he turned his life into testimony. The book is political and personal and it mixes Enlightenment ideas with vivid scenes of violence and survival, and he made it impossible for British readers to ignore the reality of slavery. Equiano held up a mirror to the empire to show its flaws. 

Greenblatt, Stephen. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 11th ed., vol. D, W.W. Norton & Company, 2024.