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The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings: Revised Edition (Penguin Classics)
 
 

The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings: Revised Edition (Penguin Classics) [Kindle Edition]

Olaudah Equiano , Vincent Carretta , Vincent Carretta
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

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Product Description

An exciting and often terrifying adventure story, as well as an important precursor to such famous nineteenth-century slave narratives as Frederick Douglass's autobiographies, Olaudah Equiano's Narrative recounts his kidnapping in Africa at the age of ten, his service as the slave of an officer in the British Navy, his ten years of labor on slave ships until he was able to purchase his freedom in 1766, and his life afterward as a leading and respected figure in the antislavery movement in England. A spirited autobiography, a tale of spiritual quest and fulfillment, and a sophisticated treatise on religion, politics, and economics, The Interesting Narrative is a work of enduring literary and historical value.

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An account of the slave trade by a native African, former slave and loyal British subject, The Interesting Narrative is both an exciting, often terrifying, adventure story and an important precursor to such famous 19th century slave narratives as Frederick Douglas's autobiography. Oludah Equiano's Narrative recounts his kidnapping in Africa at the age of 10, his service as the slave of an officer in the British Navy and his years of labour on slave ships until he was able to purchase his freedom in 1766. As a free man on a Central American plantation, he supervised slaves; increasingly disgusted by his co-workers, he returned to England in 1774. In England he worked for the resettlement of blacks in Sierra Leone, married an Englishwoman and became a leading and respected figure in the anti-slave movement. A spirited autobiography, a tale of spiritual quest and fulfilment, a sophisticated treatise on religion, politics, and economics, The Interesting Narrative is a work of enduring literary and historical value.

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Olaudah Equiano
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Fergus
Format:Paperback
This penguin edition is a recent full critical edition - and therefore the best, I think, - of the current versions of Equiano's Interesting Narrative. It is edited by Vincent Carretta who in a later monograph (Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-made Man) questions the author's claim to have been born and kidnapped in Africa and uses documentary evidence to suggest he might have been born instead in the Caribbean islands.
Equiano's turning to Evangelicalism undoubtedly makes the latter part of the book a more difficult read for those who are less interested in the wider history of the 18thC English-speaking world. But this part of the narrative is perhaps the most fascinating because it meshes so well with other 'conversion' narratives of the day (The Evangelical Conversion Narrative: Spiritual Autobiography in Early Modern England) and helps to place Equiano in the English world of William Wilberforce and John Newton and so to explain why he would come to write such a book in the first place. For this reason, to my mind, no history of England which deals with the latter half of the eighteenth Century should ignore this book.
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21 of 25 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Olaudah Equiano provides an excellent account not just of his life as a slave, but also how an ex-slave was treated in the eighteenth century. He led an extremely eventful life, but had a luckier start than most because he was bought by owners who actually treated their slaves as humans rather than animals. It is made plain in this an other first hand accounts (eg Mary Prince) that these were the exception rather than the rule.
There is always the impression that once a slave obtained his freedom his troubles were over, but Equiano shows us that that was not in fact the case. In many instances he had goods stolen from him by white men in the West Indies and had no recourse to the law in those islands.
He had an adventurous life as a sailor, travelling at one stage on a British Arctic expedition in the bomb-ketch Racehorse, not realising that an obscure midshipman in the companion ship Carcass was to go on to be known as Admiral Lord Nelson!
I was riveted through much of the narrative, but it became turgid at the end as Equiano discovered religion in a big way and the final chapters largely consist of biblical extracts, prayers, and poems about his religious feelings. In his description of his attitude to Christianity, he became insufferable, with an attitude of superiority to his less Christian brethren and an overwhelming concern for the fate of his immortal soul.
I would rate this book more highly if it were not for the final chapters which I consider tedious to all but the extremely religious. Nevertheless, the book is enjoyable and highly educational. I would recommend it to the private reader and as a text for a school history class.
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful
By CeCe
Format:Paperback
Whilst this was a fascinating book, and the authors account vivid, I feel that it lacked its focus towards the end due to his conversion to Christianity. It seemed to make the author forget his horrors and at some parts he was almost thankful to have been a slave because he found God!! I feel this was probably a tactical approach to make readers at the time favour his story and help to abolish slavery, but i felt that it distracted from what it was really about which was the horrors of slavery. I would have loved to seen what became of him, as I felt the book ended rather abruptly. In particular his marriage to a white lady at that period in time. However, it was a good read and a must for all those interested in that period in history. Another book to read would be about Mary Prince, which I feel is more frank.
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Popular Highlights

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&quote;
Let the polished and haughty European recollect that his ancestors were once, like the Africans, uncivilized, and even barbarous. Did Nature make them inferior to their sons? and should they too have been made slaves? Every rational mind answers, No. &quote;
Highlighted by 9 Kindle users
&quote;
Those prisoners which were not sold or redeemed we kept as slaves: but how different was their condition from that of the slaves in the West-Indies! With us they do no more work than other members of the community, even their master. &quote;
Highlighted by 9 Kindle users
&quote;
Does not slavery itself depress the mind, and extinguish all its fire, and every noble sentiment? &quote;
Highlighted by 9 Kindle users

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