Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Also available as a Time Warner AudioBook and eBook

When Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., saw a modest auction catalogue listing for an "Unpublished Original Manuscript," he knew he could be on the verge of a major literary find. After exhaustive research, he found that the handwritten manuscript he had purchased was the only known novel by a female African American slave and possibly the first novel written by a black woman anywhere. THE BONDWOMAN'S NARRATIVE tells of a self-educated young house slave who knows all too well slavery's brutal limitations, but never suspects that the freedom of her beautiful new mistress is also at risk-or that a devastating secret will force them both to flee the South and make a desperate bid for freedom.

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