Anthologies of African American Writing

Wiley Blackwell Anthology of African American Literature

"The Wiley Blackwell Anthology of African American Literature." Ed. Gene Andrew Jarrett. 2 vols. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2014. xxiv+1,136+xxxvii+1,075 pp.

Volume 1. 1746-1920
● Editorial Advisory Board (x)
● Preface (xi)
● Introduction (xvi)
● Principles of Selection and Editorial Procedures (xix)
● Acknowledgments (xxi)
● Table of Contents (by Genre) (xxiii)

Part 1. The Literatures of Africa, Middle Passage, and Slavery, c.1746-1830:
● Introduction (3)
● Lucy Terry (c. 1730-1821) / Bars Fight (1746) (8)
● Briton Hammon (dates unknown) / "Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, a Negro Man" (1760) (10)
● Phyllis Wheatley (c. 1753-1784) / To Maecenas (17)
● Phillis Wheatley / To the University of Cambridge, in New England (18)
● Phillis Wheatley / On Being Brought from Africa to America (19)
● Phillis Wheatley / On the Death of the Rev. Dr. Sewell. 1769 (20)
● Phillis Wheatley / On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield. 1770 (21)
● Phillis Wheatley / On the Death of a Young Lady of Five Years of Age (22)
● Phillis Wheatley / On Recollection (23)
● Phillis Wheatley / On Imagination (25)
● Phillis Wheatley / To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth, His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for North-America, &c. (26)
● Phillis Wheatley / To S. M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works (27)
● Phillis Wheatley / A Farewell to America to Mrs. S. W. (28)
● Jupiter Hammon (1711-c.1806) / An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatley, Ethiopian Poetess, in Boston, Who Came from Africa at Eight Years of Age, and Soon Became Acquainted with the Gospel of Jesus Christ (1778) (32)
● John Marrant (1755-1791) / "A Narrative of the Lord's Wonderful Dealings with John Marrant, a Black" (1785) (36)
● Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) / "Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself" (1789, 1791) [excerpts] (51)
● David Walker (c.1785-1830) / "Appeal in Four Articles" (1829) [excerpts] (120)

Part 2. The Literatures of Slavery and Freedom, c. 1830-1865:
● Introduction (139)
● Omar ibn Said (1770-1864) / "Autobiography of Omar ibn Said, Slave in North Carolina" (1831) (144)
● Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) / "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself" (1845) (149)
● Frederick Douglass / "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" (1852) (210)
● William Wells Brown (1814-1884) / "Narrative of William Wells Brown, an American Slave. Written by Himself" (1847, 1850) (223)
● William Wells Brown / "The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom: A Drama in Five Acts" (1858) (263)
● Martin Robison Delany (1812-1885) / "The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States" (1852) [excerpts] (300)
● Harriet E. Adams Wilson (1825-1900) / "Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black" (1859) (324)
● Harriet Ann Jacobs (1813-1897) / "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Written by Herself" (1861) (367)

Part 3. The Literatures of Reconstruction, Racial Uplift, and the New Negro, c.1865-1920:
● Introduction (493)
● Frank J. Webb (1828-1894) / "Two Wolves and a Lamb" (1870) (498)
● Frank J. Webb / "Marvin Hayle" (1870) (524)
● Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins (1859-1930) / "Peculiar Sam, or the Underground Railroad: A Musical Drama in Four Acts" (1879) (550)
● Charles Waddell Chesnutt (1858-1932) / "What Is a White Man?" (1889) (567)
● Charles Waddell Chesnutt / "The Marrow of Tradition" (1901) (573)
● Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911) / Aunt Chloe (720)
● Frances Ellen Watkins Harper / The Deliverance (722)
● Frances Ellen Watkins Harper / Aunt Chloe's Politics (729)
● Frances Ellen Watkins Harper / Learning to Read (729)
● Frances Ellen Watkins Harper / Church Building (731)
● Frances Ellen Watkins Harper / The Reunion (731)
● Frances Ellen Watkins Harper / "Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted" (1892) (733)
● Anna Julia Cooper (1858-1964) / Womanhood: A Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress of a Race (from "A Voice from the South" [1892]) (853)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) / The Poet and His Song (869)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / Accountability (870)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / Frederick Douglass (871)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / A Prayer (872)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / Passion and Love (873)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / An Ante-Bellum Sermon (873)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / Ode to Ethiopia (876)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / Whittier (877)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / A Banjo Song (877)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / To Louise (879)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / Alice (880)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / After the Quarrel (880)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / Beyond the Years (881)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / The Spellin'-Bee (882)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / A Negro Love Song (884)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / The Colored Soldiers (885)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / Nature and Art (887)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / When De Co'n Pone's Hot (888)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / The Deserted Plantation (889)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / We Wear the Mask (8900
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / Phyllis (891)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / When Malindy Sings (891)
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / The Lynching of Jube Benson (893)
● Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) / The Atlanta Exposition Address (from "Up from Slavery" [1901]) (901)
● William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963) / "The Souls of Black Folk" (1903) (912)
● James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) / "The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man" (1912, 1927) (1028)

● Glossary (1102)
● Timeline (1110)
● Name Index (1121)
● Subject Index (1126)

Volume 2. 1920 to the Present.
● Editorial Advisory Board (xv)
● Preface (xvi)
● Introduction (xxi)
● Principles of Selection and Editorial Procedures (xxv)
● Acknowledgments (xxvii)
● Table of Contents (by Genre) (xxxiv)

Part 1. The Literatures of the New Negro Renaissance, c. 1920-1940:
● Introduction (3)
● Claude McKay (1889-1948) / Whe' fe Do? (9)
● Claude McKay / Cudjoe Fresh from de Lecture (11)
● Claude McKay / America (12)
● Claude McKay / The Tropics in New York (13)
● Claude McKay / Harlem Shadows (13)
● Claude McKay / The White City (14)
● Claude McKay / Africa (14)
● Claude McKay / The Tired Worker (14)
● Claude McKay / If We Must Die (15)
● Claude McKay / Banjo: A Story without a Plot [excerpts] (15)
● Jessie Fauset (1882-1961) / Double Trouble (59)
● Jessie Fauset / Dark Algiers the White (68)
● Jean Toomer (1894-1967) / Bona and Paul (from "Cane") (79)
● Jean Toomer / "Balo" (85)
● Jean Toomer / Winter on Earth (93)
● Jean Toomer / Race Problems in Modern Society (109)
● Countée Cullen (1903-1946) / Yet Do I Marvel (126)
● Countée Cullen / Tableau (127)
● Countée Cullen / Incident (127)
● Countée Cullen / Heritage (128)
● Countée Cullen / To John Keats, Poet. At Spring Time (131)
● Countée Cullen / I Have a Rendezvous with Life (132)
● Countée Cullen / Four Epitaphs (133)
● Countée Cullen / Millennial (134)
● Countée Cullen / At the Wailing all in Jerusalem (134)
● Countée Cullen / From the Dark Tower (135)
● Countée Cullen / Uncle Jim (135)
● Countée Cullen / To Certain Critics (136)
● W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963) / The Negro Mind Reaches Out (139)
● W. E. B. Du Bois / Criteria of Negro Art (157)
● Rudolph Fisher (1897-1934) / The City of Refuge (165)
● Rudolph Fisher / Blades of Steel (175)
● Rudolph Fisher / The Caucasian Storms Harlem (185)
● Helene Johnson (1906-1995) / My Race (191)
● Helene Johnson / The Road (191)
● Helene Johnson / Magula (191)
● Helene Johnson / A Southern Road (192)
● Helene Johnson / Bottled (192)
● Helene Johnson / Poem (194)
● Helene Johnson / Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem (194)
● Helene Johnson / Summer Matures (195)
● Helene Johnson / Invocation (195)
● Helene Johnson / Remember Not (196)
● Alain Locke (1885-1954) / The New Negro (198)
● Langston Hughes (1902-1967) / The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain (210)
● Langston Hughes / The Weary Blues (213)
● Langston Hughes / Jazzonia (214)
● Langston Hughes / Harlem Night Club (215)
● Langston Hughes / The Negro Speaks of Rivers (215)
● Langston Hughes / Danse Africaine (216)
● Langston Hughes / Epilogue [I, Too, Sing America] (216)
● Langston Hughes / Dream Boogie (217)
● Langston Hughes / Juke Box Love Song (217)
● Langston Hughes / Ballad of the Landlord (218)
● George S. Schuyler (1895-1977) / The Negro-Art Hokum (221)
● George S. Schuyler / "Black No More" [excerpts] (223)
● Dorothy West (1907-1998) / The Typewriter (245)
● Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) / The Back Room (254)
● Zora Neale Hurston / How It Feels to Be Colored Me (258)
● Nella Larsen (1891-1964) / "Passing" (263)
● Sterling A. Brown (1901-1989) / Odyssey of Big Boy (319)
● Sterling A. Brown / When de Saints Go Ma'ching Home (321)
● Sterling A. Brown / Southern Road (324)
● Sterling A. Brown / Memphis Blues (325)
● Sterling A. Brown / Ma Rainey (327)
● Sterling A. Brown / Tin Roof Blues (328)
● Sterling A. Brown / Cabaret (329)
● Sterling A. Brown / Salutamus (329)
● Sterling A. Brown / To a Certain Lady, in Her Garden (330)
● Richard Wright (1908-1960) / Big Boy Leaves Home (335)
● Richard Wright / Blueprint for Negro Writing (360)
● Richard Wright / How "Bigger" Was Born (367)

Part 2. The Literatures of Modernism, Modernity, and Civil Rights, c1940-1965:
● Introduction (387)
● Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) / A Street in Bronzeville (full section) (393): i.e.,
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / kitchenette building (393)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / the mother (393)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / southeast corner (394)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / hunchback girl: she thinks of heaven (394)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / a song in the front yard (395)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / the ballad of chocolate Mabbie (395)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / the preacher: ruminates behind the sermon (396)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / Sadie and Maud (396)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / the independent man (397)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / of De Witt Williams on his way to Lincoln Cemetery (397)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / the vacant lot (398)
● Gwendolyn Brooks / Notes from the Childhood and Girlhood (from "Annie Allen") (398): i.e.,
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / the parents: people like our marriage Maxie and Andrew (398)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / Sunday chicken (399)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / old relative (399)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / the ballad of late Annie (399)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / throwing out the flowers (400)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / "do not be afraid of no" (400)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / "'pygmies are pygmies still, though percht on Alps' [Edward Young]" (401)
● Gwendolyn Brooks / The Anniad (from "Annie Allen") (401)
● Gwendolyn Brooks / The Womanhood (from "Annie Allen") (409): i.e.,
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / the children of the poor (409)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / [Life for my child is simple, and is good] (410)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / the ballad of the light-eyed little girl (411)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / [A light and diplomatic bird] (411)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / the rites for Cousin Vit (412)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / I love those little booth at Benvenuti's (412)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / Beverly Hills, Chicago (414)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / Truth (415)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / [One wants a Teller in a time like this] (415)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / [People protest in sprawling lightless ways] (416)
◦ Gwendolyn Brooks / [Men of careful turns, haters of forks in the road] (416)
● Robert Hayden (1913-1980) / Middle Passage (419)
● Robert Hayden / The Ballad of Nat Turner (424)
● Chester Himes (1909-1984) / A Night of New Roses (428)
● Chester Himes / Da-Da-Dee (432)
● Chester Himes / Tang (436)
● Ann Petry (1908-1997) / The Bones of Louella Brown (443)
● Ann Petry / In Darkness and Confusion (451)
● James Baldwin (1924-1987) / Everybody's Protest Novel (475)
● James Baldwin / Notes of a Native Son (479)
● James Baldwin / Sonny's Blues (492)
● Ralph Ellison (1914-1994) / "Invisible Man" [excerpts] (514)
● Ralph Ellison / Hidden Name and Complex Fate (585)
● Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) / Willie Loman, Walter Younger, and He Who Must Live (601)

Part 3. The Literatures of Nationalism, Militancy, and the Black Aesthetic, c. 1965-1975:
● Introduction (609)
● Amiri Bakara (b. 1934) / The Myth of a "Negro Literature" (615)
● Amiri Baraka / Crow Jane (620)
● Amiri Baraka / I Substitute for the Dead Lecturer (623)
● Amiri Baraka / Political Poem (624)
● Amiri Baraka / "Dutchman" (624)
● Adrienne Kennedy (b. 1931) / "Funnyhouse of a Negro" (638)
● Larry Neal (1937-1981) / And Shine Swam On (650)
● Lucille Clifton (1936-2010) / [in the inner city] (662)
● Lucille Clifton / [My Mama moved among the days] (662)
● Lucille Clifton / [My daddy's fingers move among the couplers] (663)
● Lucille Clifton / The white boy (663)
● Lucille Clifton / Ca'line's prayer (663)
● Lucille Clifton / Generations (664)
● Michael S. Harper (b. 1938) / Brother John (666)
● Michael S. Harper / Where is My Woman Now: For Billie Holiday (667)
● Michael S. Harper / Malcolm's Blues (667)
● Michael S. Harper / Dirge for Trane (668)
● Michael S. Harper / American History (669)
● Michael S. Harper / Deathwatch (669)
● Michael S. Harper / Dear John, Dear Coltrane (670)
● Sonia Sanchez (b. 1934) / "A Blues Book for a Blue Black Magic Woman" [excerpt] (673)
● Toni Cade Bambara (1939-1995) / My Man Bovanne (from "Gorilla, My Love") (681)
● June Jordan (1936-2002) / In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr. (687)
● June Jordan / If You Saw a Negro Lady (688)
● June Jordan / And Who Are You? (689)
● June Jordan / Toward a Personal Semantics (692)
● June Jordan / What Would I Do White? (692)
● June Jordan / No Train of Thought (693)
● June Jordan / I Celebrate the Sons of Malcolm (693)
● June Jordan / Last Poem for a Little While (694)
● June Jordan / On the Black Poet Reading His Poems in the Park (697)
● June Jordan / On the Black Family (697)
● June Jordan / Calling on All Silent Minorities (698)
● June Jordan / No Poem Because Time Is Not a Name (699)
● June Jordan / The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America: Something Like a Sonnet for Phillis Wheatley (700)

Part 4. The Literatures of the Contemporary Period, c. 1975 to the Present:
● Introduction (711)
● Samuel Delany (b. 1942) / Omegahelm (717)
● Ntozake Shange (b. 1948) / "for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf" [excerpt] (726)
● Alice Walker (b. 1944) / Looking for Zora (735)
● Alice Walker / Zora Neale Hurston: A Cautionary Tale and a Partisan View (747)
● Alice Walker / "The Color Purple" [excerpt] (751)
● Audre Lorde (1934-1992) / Poetry Is Not a Luxury (762)
● Audre Lorde / The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House (764)
● Audre Lorde / Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference (766)
● Audre Lorde / The Black Unicorn (773)
● Audre Lorde / Coniagui Women (773)
● Audre Lorde / For Assata (774)
● Audre Lorde / In Margaret's Garden (775)
● Audre Lorde / Woman (775)
● Audre Lorde / But What Can You Teach My Daughter (776)
● Audre Lorde / Sister Outsider (776)
● Octavia Butler (1947-2006) / "Kindred" [excerpts] (780)
● Gloria Naylor (b. 1950) / Dawn (810)
● Gloria Naylor / The Block Party (812)
● Gloria Naylor / Dusk (819)
● Toni Morrison (b. 1931) / Recitatif (823)
● Rita Dove (b. 1952) / "Thomas and Beulah" (836): i.e.,
◦ Rita Dove / The Event (837)
◦ Rita Dove / Variation and Pain (837)
◦ Rita Dove / Jiving (838)
◦ Rita Dove / Straw Hat (839)
◦ Rita Dove / Courtship (839)
◦ Rita Dove / Refrain (840)
◦ Rita Dove / Variation on Guilt (841)
◦ Rita Dove / Nothing Down (842)
◦ Rita Dove / The Zeppelin Factory (843)
◦ Rita Dove / Under the Viaduct, 1932 (844)
◦ Rita Dove / Lightnin' Blues (845)
◦ Rita Dove / Compendium (845)
◦ Rita Dove / Definition in the Face of Unnamed Fury (846)
◦ Rita Dove / Aircraft (846)
◦ Rita Dove / Aurora Borealis (847)
◦ Rita Dove / Variation on Gaining a Son (847)
◦ Rita Dove / One Volume Missing (848)
◦ Rita Dove / The Charm (848)
◦ Rita Dove / Gospel (849)
◦ Rita Dove / Roast Possum (850)
◦ Rita Dove / The Stroke (851)
◦ Rita Dove / The Satisfaction Coal Company (851)
◦ Rita Dove / Thomas at the Wheel (853)
◦ Rita Dove / Taking in Wash (853)
◦ Rita Dove / Magic (854)
◦ Rita Dove / Courtship, Diligence (855)
◦ Rita Dove / Promises (855)
◦ Rita Dove / Dusting (856)
◦ Rita Dove / A Hill of Beans (857)
◦ Rita Dove / Weathering Out (857)
◦ Rita Dove / Motherhood (858)
◦ Rita Dove / Anniversary (859)
◦ Rita Dove / The House on Bishop Street (859)
◦ Rita Dove / Daystar (860)
◦ Rita Dove / Obedience (860)
◦ Rita Dove / The Great Palaces of Versailles (861)
◦ Rita Dove / Pomade (861)
◦ Rita Dove / Headdress (863)
◦ Rita Dove / Sunday Greens (863)
◦ Rita Dove / Recovery (864)
◦ Rita Dove / Nightmare (864)
◦ Rita Dove / Wingfoot Lake (865)
◦ Rita Dove / Company (866)
◦ Rita Dove / The Oriental Ballerina (866)
◦ Rita Dove / Chronology (868)
● August Wilson (1945-2005) / "Fences" (871)
● Jamaica Kincaid (b. 1949) / Poor Visitor (from "Lucy") (917)
● Ernest J. Gaines (b. 1933) / "A Lesson Before Dying" [excerpt] (924)
● Suzan-Lori Parks (b. 1963) / An Equation for Black People Onstage (948)
● Edwidge Danticat (b. 1969) / New York Day Woman (952)
● Walter Mosley (b. 1952) / Black to the Future (958)
● Walter Mosley / The Nig in Me (960)
● Percival Everett (b. 1956) / The Fix (979)
● John Edgar Wideman (b. 1941) / Weight (990)
● Harryette Mullen (b. 1953) / All She Wrote (1000)
● Harryette Mullen / The Anthropic Principle (1000)
● Harryette Mullen / Bleeding Hearts (1001)
● Harryette Mullen / Daisy Pearl (1001)
● Harryette Mullen / Denigration (1001)
● Harryette Mullen / Dim Lady (1002)
● Harryette Mullen / Ectopia (1002)
● Harryette Mullen / Exploring the Dark Content (1002)
● Harryette Mullen / Music for Homemade Instruments (1003)
● Harryette Mullen / Natural Anguish (1003)
● Harryette Mullen / Resistance Is Fertile (1003)
● Harryette Mullen / Sleeping with the Dictionary (1004)
● Harryette Mullen / We Are Not Responsible (1004)
● Edward P. Jones (b. 1950) / "The Known World" [excerpt] (1006)
● Charles R. Johnson (b. 1948) / The End of the Black American Narrative (1023)

Glossary (1032)
Timeline (1040)
Name Index (1053)
Subject Index (1058)

● Includes 233 selections from 71 authors.

● Although the anthology groups works under their authors, it presents the sequence of authors chronologically by the date of publication of the first work of theirs included in the anthology, rather than by their date of birth (as in other comprehensive anthologies of African American literature) (xi). The main complication is with authors who published works over a long span of time: to address this problem with respect to W. E. B. DuBois, there are selections from him in both volumes of the anthology, from earlier in his career and from later in his career (xii). Authors who are contemporaries, in terms of their year of birth, are not always contemporaries in their literary careers: for instance, "Only six months in 1825 separate the births of Harriet E. Wilson and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, but over three decades separate Wilson's publication of "Our Nig" in 1859 and Harper's "Iola Leroy" in 1892" (xi); similarly, Toni Morrison was born in the 1930s, along with writers such as LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka, Adrienne Kennedy, Larry Neal, and Sonia Sanchez, but while these other authors "peaked in celebrity during [the Black Arts Movement], with which they openly affiliated," Morrison's writing career belongs to a later moment (though her earlier works in the 1970s overlap with the latter part of the Black Arts Movement) (xii).

● The authors and works included in the anthology are organized into seven chronological sections of variable lengths: in volume 1: the colonial and early national period (ca. 1746-1830); the antebellum and Civil War period (ca. 1830-1865); the period of Reconstruction and the early New Negro (ca. 1865-1920); in volume 2: the New Negro Renaissance (ca. 1920-1940); modernism and civil rights (ca. 1940-1965); nationalism and the Black Aesthetic (ca. 1965-1975); and the contemporary period (ca. 1975-present [2014]) (xiii-xiv).

● In addition to the chronological organization of the contents, there is also a table of contents organized by genre: with division of the works under the labels, in volume 1, of poetry, autobiography, essay, drama, fiction, and novel or novella, and, in volume 2, of poetry or poetics, autobiography, essay, drama, fiction, and novel or novella. Genre categories often require some elaboration and this alternative ordering of the contents isn't always as illuminating as it might be: for example: Du Bois's "The Souls of Black Folk" is listed under "Fiction" (as well as under "Essay" and "Autobiography"), presumably in consideration of "The Coming of John" but it seems misleading to place the whole work under the label of "fiction"; Audre Lorde's "Sister Outsider" is listed under "Poetry and Poetics," but it might have been better to have a category for "Criticism" separate from "Poetry" so that one can distinguish poetry from criticism or discussion about poetry, and so that a piece like Richard Wright's "How 'Bigger' Was Born" does not have to go under "Autobiography" and an undifferentiated grab-bag category of "Essay"; all of the contents under "Autobiography" in volume 2 are repeated under "Essay" (items like Richard Wright's "How 'Bigger' Was Born." James Baldwin's "Notes of a Native Son," and Alice Walker's "Looking for Zora"), but Zora Neale Hurston's "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" appears only under "Essay" (rather than also under "Autobiography"); many works in both volumes appear under both "Fiction" and "Novel or Novella": it might have been better to distinguish between "Short Story" and "Novel or Novella."

● The selection of texts was guided by "data on course adoptions, commercial sales, scholarly citations, and historical acclaim (or lack thereof)" (xii). But "[c]opyright expenses and restrictions and practical word count limits posed the greatest challenges to fulfilling this anthology's mission of reprinting all the texts most ideal for teaching and learning" (xii); "copyright owners or their agents . . . understandably wish to winnow down the anthology's selection so that it does not detract from the separate, independent sales of these entire texts. Even on a smaller scale, such as the short stories and individual poems of renowned authors, these structural limitations played a role in the editorial decision to include or exclude them" (xix-xx). Nonetheless, this anthology reprints more complete works than is typically the case with other anthologies: volume 1 includes complete works by John Marrant, Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, Harriet E. Wilson, Harriet Jacobs, Pauline E. Hopkins, Charles W. Chesnutt, W. E. B. Du Bois, and James Weldon Johnson; volume 2, when reprinting costs become a constraint, still reprints full texts from Jean Toomer, Nella Larsen, Amiri Baraka, Adrienne Kennedy, August Wilson, and Rita Dove (xiii).

● "Along with the typical preface, volume introductions, period introductions, headnotes, textual annotations, glossary, and timeline, this anthology features after every author's headnote a copious scholarly bibliography of articles, book chapters, books, and edited collections published recently (usually within the last two decades) and capturing the latest approaches to the author, the text, or the circumstances of literary production" (xii-xiii). There is also an accompanying website (www.wiley.com/go/jarrett) that "will provide new material such as syllabi, classroom discussion questions and paper topics, reorganizations of the table of contents, audio and video links, links to Wiley Blackwell's own online library [including the article-length essays in Wiley Blackwell's "A Companion to African American Literature"], and links to other relevant websites" (xiii).

● Textual note: "The reprintings of primary texts largely hew to original editions. For the benefit of readers, the texts have been lightly edited to correct errors of spelling, punctuation, syntax, and capitalization born in the original editions. Where no semantic meaning is involved in the change, typographic elements have been made consistent across the volumes and arabic numbering has been used in preference to roman. Annotative footnotes (which are enumerated by the editor) occasionally include these corrections or translate incomprehensibly archaic language into contemporary form. More often, they define obscure words; explain complex or meaningful phrases; and trace the historical significance of individuals, groups, places, and events. When known, the year of first publication . . . follows each selection on the right-hand side, sometimes adjoined to the year of a subsequent, revised edition. If relevant, the year of composition is also provided on the left-hand side" (xx).

● This two-volume anthology presents a chronological survey of "poems, short stories, novellas, novels, plays, autobiographies, and essays authored by New World Africans and African Americans from the eighteenth century until the present" (xi). The division of the anthology into two volumes--rather than the single-volume format of other comprehensive anthologies of African American literature--reflects the fact that, "We are now in an age when introductory or survey courses on this literature, similar to those on broader American literature, are taught over multiple semesters, not just one. We are also in an age when specialized courses tend to revolve around historical periods far shorter than the sestercentennial life of African American literature" (xiii).

● Given the increasing specialization in the teaching and study of African American literature discussed above, this anthology, of course, affirms the need for comprehensive anthologies devoted specifically to African American literature: the editor outlines three stages leading up the present moment: first, there were calls "for the inclusion of the 'major writers of America' in English Department curricula"; then, there were efforts to make the canon, as represented in anthologies of American literature, more representative of the diversities of US culture and society; then, in the 1990s, a consensus emerged among scholars that "this incremental accumulation of African American writers and experiences in the American canon" would never offer an adequate account of the development and achievements of African American literature across its length and breadth and that comprehensive anthologies devoted specifically to African American literature were needed (xiv). The present anthology takes its place in this sequence.

● One major departure of this anthology is its view of writing by African American authors as being more than just "race literature": to be sure, it acknowledges that a large portion of African American writing engages the concerns that stem from the racial situation of the authors and their community and/or draws directly on black vernacular traditions: "One cannot fully comprehend the selected writings of Frederick Douglass and W. E. B. Du Bois without apprehending work songs and the spirituals; those of Phillis Wheatley, Jupiter Hammon, and Harriet Jacobs without proverbs, sermons, and prayers; those of Charles W. Chesnutt, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Zora Neale Hurston, and Alice Walker without folklore; those of James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Sterling A. Brown, and Michael S. Harper without jazz and the blues; and those of Gwendolyn Brooks, Amiri Baraka, Lucille Clifton, and Gloria Naylor without codes of black urban vernacular" (xiv-xv). But this anthology resists the approach that "anoints texts with canonical significance only insofar as they attest to the traditional heritage and genealogy of 'blackness,' such as the spirituals, gospels, work songs, folklore, the blues, proverbs, sermons, prayers, orations, jazz, black urban vernacular, and rap lyrics that people of African descent created, circulated, and consumed" (xiv). Jarrett argues that "African American literature is more complex and diverse than that. Indeed, the selected fiction and essays of Frank J. Webb, Jean Toomer, George S. Schuyler, Samuel Delaney, Toni Morrison, and Charles S. Johnson unsettle traditional conceptions of race that presume the unvariegated quintessence of African American literature, experience, communities, and politics" (xv).

● This anthology thus makes no attempt to cover folk traditions as such--in part because these are now being addressed much more comprehensively in anthologies devoted specifically to them than they could ever be in a general anthology (xv).

● "The Wiley Blackwell Anthology of African American Literature" thus marks a new, long-awaited turn in the tone, structure, and purpose of canon formation. No longer must a comprehensive anthology sound an existential urgency to disprove condemnation of the tradition or canonicity of African American literature. No longer must it bear the burden of representing all versions of the written and spoken word communicated by "the race." And no longer should it presume the hunger of contemporary readers for authentic racial self-reflection. Rather, this kind of anthology should delight in an ironic corpus of literature that, at one moment, asserts the shared diasporic experience and history of African Americans yet, at another, wonders whether this assertion rings hollow as often as it rings true. In the new millennium, the ambivalent life, literature, and literary historiography of race demand this canonical turn" (xv).

A0424