Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, In A Two-Story White House, North. Showing That Slavery's Shadows Fall Even There [Paperback]

Harriet E. Wilson (Author), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Introduction), Jr. Henry Louis Gates (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 12, 1983 | Series: Vintage

The 1859 novel tracing the life of a mulatto foundling abused by a white family in 19th century New England.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I sat up most of the night reading and pondering the enormous significance of Harriet Wilson's Our Nig." —Alice Walker

From the Inside Flap

The 1859 novel tracing the life of a mulatto foundling abused by a white family in 19th century New England.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 2nd edition (April 12, 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394715586
• ISBN-13: 978-0394715582
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #916,303 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars buy it with the Foreman & Pitts introduction, May 7, 2005

By 

anonymous "anonymous" (St Louis) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Our Nig: or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black (Mass Market Paperback)

Though I currently have the 1983 edition with the introduction by Henry Louis Gates, Jr (whose name is in the introduction for almost every important Af-Am text in circulation, it seems), I plan on getting this latest edition.

Until recently, biographical details on Wilson were limited. Indeed, they seemed to trail off soon after the publication of her book (a death certificate for her son six months after its printing has suggested to some that her call for support went unheard). This introduciton offers new and happier information, showing that Wilson lived a long life--in part as a successful lecturer on the Spiritualist circuit.

In any edition this is a great book. Really, "great" isn't superlative enough to cover how important and interesting it is. But if you're going to buy it, get this edition.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Slave of Northern Abolitionist but free, May 7, 2007

By 

Tony Thomas (SUNNY ISLES BEACH, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Our Nig: or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black (Mass Market Paperback)

This book was written by a woman who was supposed to be a free Black woman. In fact she was treated like a slave, a Black wage slave. She was oppressed by a family of who were Northern Abolitionists. Yet, she was treated like a slave. Succeeding generations of whites studying the book denied her and her class the ability to write such a book: they claimed the book had to have been written by a white person and that it was a novel, not real.

Millions of Black women who have slaved in white kitchens and cleaning white homes during and since slavery have a spokesperson in Harriet E. Wilson. This book helps us understand not just to pity them, but to understanding their ability to fight back with their minds.

34 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The North Wasn't Much Better, September 15, 2000

By 

"gsibbery" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, In A Two-Story White House, North. Showing That Slavery's Shadows Fall Even There (Paperback)

The female child of a white female outcast and a black freeman, the author gives a detailed account of what it was like being raised by a white family in the pre-Civil War North of the United States (a household where she was abandoned by her mother at 3). This biography gives a general idea of what a Negro's life in the North was like -- and it was not much different from that life of a slave in the South. The mistress of the house was brutal beyond measure, but many of the other family members were reasonably kind (though not kind of enough to put a stop to the abuse), and it makes one shudder to think of what could have happened in a family who had nothing but Negro-haters in it. Still, she recounts how she got a small measure of schooling, and how she eventually became a Christian (something which the lady of the house -- a Christian herself -- opposed) and her eventual marriage. An upsetting story, it is nevertheless of much more value than "Uncle Tom's Cabin" as it was told from the point of view of the victim and not a sympathetic white.