African American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. It begins with the works of such late 18th-century writers as Phillis Wheatley. Before the high point of enslaved people narratives, African-American literature was dominated by autobiographical spiritual narratives. The genre known as slave narratives in the 19th century were accounts by people who had generally escaped from slavery, about their journeys to freedom and ways they claimed their lives. The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s was a great period of flowering in literature and the arts, influenced both by writers who came North in the Great Migration and those who were immigrants from Jamaica and other Caribbean islands.Contents:Novels and short storiesWilliam Wells BrownCLOTEL; OR, THE PRESIDENT'S DAUGHTERFrederick DouglassTHE HEROIC SLAVEHarriet E. WilsonOUR NIG; OR, SKETCHES FROM THE LIFE OF A FREE BLACKNella LarsenAlice Dunbar-NelsonCharles W. ChesnuttPaul Laurence DunbarTHE SCAPEGOATJean ToomerBECKYPoetryFrances E. W. HarperPOEMSLangston HughesTHE WEARY BLUESCountee CullenPhillis WheatleyPOEMS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, RELIGIOUS AND MORALNon-fictionOlaudah EquianoTHE INTERESTING NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF OLAUDAH EQUIANO, OR GUSTAVUS VASSA, THE AFRICANMary PrinceTHE HISTORY OF MARY PRINCE, A WEST INDIAN SLAVECharles BallA NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF CHARLES BALLFrederick DouglassNARRATIVE OF THE LIFEJosiah HensonTHE LIFE OF JOSIAH HENSONSolomon NorthupTWELVE YEARS A SLAVEHarriet Ann JacobsINCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRLElizabeth KeckleyBEHIND THE SCENESLouis HughesTHIRTY YEARS A SLAVEBooker T. WashingtonUP FROM SLAVERYHenry Box BrownJames Hambleton ChristianTheophilus CollinsSeth ConcklinWilliam And Ellen CraftAbram Galloway And Richard EdenCharles GilbertSamuel GreenJamie GriffinHarry GrimesJames Hamlet And OthersJohn Henry HillAnn Maria Jackson And Her Seven ChildrenJane JohnsonMatilda MahoneyMary Frances MelvinAunt Hannah MooreAlfred S. ThorntonEssaysW. E. B. Du BoisTHE SOULS OF BLACK FOLKCharles W. ChesnuttTHE DISFRANCHISEMENT OF THE NEGROPaul Laurence DunbarREPRESENTATIVE AMERICAN NEGROES
