Fire on the Water: Sailors, Slaves, and Insurrection in Early American Literature, 1789-1886 (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781684480173)

Lenora Warren tells a new story about the troubled history of abolition and slave violence by examining representations of shipboard mutiny and insurrection in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Anglo-American and American literature. Fire on the Water centers on five black sailors, whose experiences of slavery and insurrection either inspired or found resonance within fiction: Olaudah Equiano, Denmark Vesey, Joseph Cinqué, Madison Washington, and Washington Goode. These stories of sailors, both real and fictional, reveal how the history of mutiny and insurrection is both shaped by, and resistant to, the prevailing abolitionist rhetoric surrounding the efficacy of armed rebellion as a response to slavery. Pairing well-known texts with lesser-known figures (Billy Budd and Washington Goode) and well-known figures with lesser-known texts (Denmark Vesey and the work of John Howison), this book reveals the richness of literary engagement with the politics of slave violence.

Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

Author: Lenora Warren
ISBN-10: 1684480175
ISBN-13: 9781684480173
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
Language: English
Published: 06/07/2019
Pages: 182
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.10w x 0.40d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 02/01/2020