Selected and recommended writings by and about Black authors of the 1800s.

• Ball, Charles (b.1780?-??), Slavery in the United States: A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Charles Ball, A Black Man (1836) (fictionalized autobiography)
• Bibb, Henry (1815-1854), The Narrative of the Life and Adventure of Henry Bibb, Written by Himself (1849)
• Blight, David W., American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era (2011)
• Blight, David W., Beyond the Battlefield: Race, Memory & the American Civil War (2002)
• Blight, David W., Frederick Douglass' Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee (1991)
• Blight, David W., Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom (2018)
• Blight, David W., Passages to Freedom: The Underground Railroad in History and Memory (2001)
• Blight, David W., Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (2001)
• Blight, David W., A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation (2007)
• Brown, William Wells (1815-1884), The Black Man, His Genius and His Achievements (1863)
• Brown, William Wells (1815-1884), Clotel; or, The President's Daughter (1853)
• Brown, William Wells (1815-1884), The Negro in the American Rebellion (1867)
• Brown, William Wells (1815-1884), Narrative of William. W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave. Written by Himself (1848)
• Brown, William Wells (1815-1884), The Rising Son; or, The antecedents and Advancement of the Colored Race (1874)
• Bruce, Henry Clay (1836-1902), The New Man: Twenty-Nine Years a Slave, Twenty-Nine Years a Free Man (1895)
• Chestnutt, Charles W. (1858-1932), The Conjure Woman (1899)
• Chestnutt, Charles W. (1858-1932), Frederick Douglass: A Biography (1899)
• Chestnutt, Charles W. (1858-1932), “The Goophered Grapevine” (1887)
• Chestnutt, Charles W. (1858-1932), The House Behind the Cedars (1900)
• Chestnutt, Charles W. (1858-1932), The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color-Line (1899)
• Clarke, Lewis Garrard (1812?-1897), Narrative of the Sufferings of Lewis and Milton Clarke (1846)
• Cooper, Julia (1858-1964), Our Raison d’Être (1892)
• Cooper, Julia (1858-1964), Personal Recollections of the Grimké Family and the Life and Writings of Charlotte Forten Grimké (1951)
• Cooper, Julia (1858-1964), Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters (1998)
• Craft, Ellen (1826-1891) and William Craft (c. 1824-1900), Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom: or, the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery (1860), as narrated by William.
• Crafts, Hannah Bond (b circa 1830s-??), The Bondwoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts, a Fugitive Slave Recently Escaped from North Carolina (c. 1850s)
• Delany, Martin R. (1812-1885), Blake: or; The Huts of America (1859-1962) (only Part I published)
• Delany, Martin R. (1812-1885), The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States and Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party (1852)
• Delany, Martin R. (1812-1885), The Origin and Objects of Ancient Freemasonry: Its Introduction into the United States and Legitimacy Among Colored Men (1853)
• Delany, Martin R. (1812-1885), Political Destiny of the Colored Race on the American Continent in Proceedings of the National Emigration Convention of Colored People Held at Cleveland, Ohio the 24th, 25th and 26th of August, 1854
• Delany, Martin R. (1812-1885), Principia of Ethnology; The Origin of Races and Color, with an Archeological Compendium of Ethiopian and Egyptian Civilization (1879)
• Douglass, Frederick (1818-1895), The Heroic Slave, a Heartwarming Narrative of the Adventures of Madison Washington, in Pursuit of Liberty (1852)
• Douglass, Frederick (1818-1895), Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881)
• Douglass, Frederick (1818-1895), My Bondage and My Freedom (1855)
• Douglass, Frederick (1818-1895), Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Written by Himself (1845) Introduction David W. Blight (1993)
• Douglass, Frederick (1818-1895), John R. McKivigan, Julie Husband, Heather L. Kaufman, editors, The Speeches of Frederick Douglass: A Critical Edition (2018)
• Dunbar, Alice (1875-1935), Violets and Other Tales (1895)
• Dunbar, Paul Laurence (1872-1906), Folks From Dixie (1898)
• Dunbar, Paul Laurence (1872-1906), Lyrics of the Hearthside (1899)
• Dunbar, Paul Laurence (1872-1906), Lyrics of Lowly Life (1895)
• Dunbar, Paul Laurence (1872-1906), Majors and Minors (1896)
• Dunbar, Paul Laurence (1872-1906), Oak and Ivy (1893)
• Dunbar, Paul Laurence (1872-1906), "Our Martyred Soldiers" and "On The River" in 1888
• Dunbar, Paul Laurence (1872-1906), The Uncalled (1898)
• Foote, Julia A. J. (1823-1901), A Brand Plucked from the Fire: An Autobiographical Sketch (1879)
• Garnet, Henry Highland (1815-1882), Let Slavery Die: The Life of Henry Highland Garnet and His 1865 Discourse Before the House of Representatives
• Garnet, Henry Highland (1815-1882), The Past and the Present Condition and the Destiny of the Colored Race (1848)
• Garnet, Henry Highland (1815-1882), Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life (1829)
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow (2020)
• Grimké, Charlotte Forten (1837-1914), Brenda Stevenson, editor, The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimké (The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers) (1988)
• Grimké, Charlotte Forten (1837-1914), “Life in the Sea Islands” May 1864, the Atlantic Monthly
• Harper, Frances E. W. (1825-1911), Iola Leroy; or Shadows Uplifted (1892)
• Harper, Frances E. W. (1825-1911), Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects (1854)
• Harper, Frances E. W. (1825-1911), Sketches of Southern Life (1872)
• Henson, Josiah (1789-1883), Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction: Father Henson’s Story of His Life (1858)
• Hopkins, Pauline E. (1859-1930), Contending Forces: A Romance Illustrative of Negro Life North and South (1900) 
• Hopkins, Pauline E. (1859-1930), Slaves’ Escape; or, The Underground Railroad (1880)
• Hopkins, Pauline E. (1859-1930), "Talma Gordon," First published in The Colored American Magazine, 1900
• Hopper, Isaac T. (1771-1852), Tales of Oppression (1853) (fugitive slave accounts published in National Anti-Slavery Standard)
• Horton, George Moses (1797?-1883?), The Hope of Liberty (1829)
• Horton, George Moses (1797?-1883?), “Liberty and Slavery” (1828)
• Horton, George Moses (1797?-1883?), The Poetical Works of George M. Horton, The Colored Bard of North-Carolina, To Which Is Prefixed The Life of the Author, Written by Himself (1845)
• Horton, George Moses (1797?-1883?), Naked Genius (1865)
• Hughes, Louis (1832-??), Thirty Years a Slave: From Bondage to Freedom (1896)
• Hurston, Zora Neale, Deborah G. Plant, editor, Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” (2018)
• Jacobs, Harriet (1813-1897), Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)
• Jones, Thomas H. (1806?-??), Experience and Personal Narrative of Uncle Tom Jones; Who Was for Forty Years a Slave. Also the Surprising Adventures of Wild Tom, of the Island Retreat, a Fugitive Negro from South Carolina (185? )
• Keckley, Elizabeth H. (1818-1907), Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House (1868)
• Langston, John Mercer (1829-1897), Freedom and Citizenship: Selected Lectures of Hon. John Mercer Langston (1883)
• Langston, John Mercer (1829-1897), From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol; Or, the First and Only Negro Representative in Congress from the Old Dominion (1894)
• Loguen, Jermain Wesley (1813-1872), The Rev. J. W. Loguen, as a Slave and as a Freeman, a Narrative of Real Life (1859)
• Matthews, Victoria Earle (1861-1907), Aunt Lindy: A Story Founded on Real Life (1889)
• Matthews, Victoria Earle (1861-1907), The Value of Race Literature (1895)
• Nell, William C. (1816-1874), Services of Colored Americans in the Wars of 1776 and 1812 (1851) and The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution (1855)
• Northup, Solomon (1807? -??), Twelve Years a Slave (1807)
• Payne, Daniel A. (1811-1893), The History of the African American Episcopal Church (1891)
• Payne, Daniel A. (1811-1893), Recollections of Seventy Years (1888)
• Pennington, James W. C. (1807-1870), The Fugitive Blacksmith; or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington (1849)
• Pennington, James W. C. (1807-1870), The Origin And History, Etc. of the Colored People (1841)
• Randolph, Peter (1825-1897), From Slave Cabin to the Pulpit: The Autobiography of Rev. Peter Randolph (1893)
• Rollin, Frank A. [aka Frances Anne Rollin Whipper] (1845-1901), Life and Public Services of Martin R. Delany (1868)
• “S”(Early 19th Century), “Theresa, A Haytien Tale” (1827)
• Said, Omar Ibn (1770-1864), editor Ala Alryyes, A Muslim American Slave: The Life of Omar Ibn Said (Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography) 2012
• Schor, Joel, Henry Highland Garnet: A Voice of Black Radicalism in the Nineteenth Century (1977) 
• Séjour, Victor (1817-1874), “Le Mulâtre” (“The Mulatto”) (1837)
• Stewart, Maria W. (b.?-1879), Meditations from the Pen of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart (1879)
• Still, William (1821-1902), The Underground Railroad Records: A record of facts, authentic narratives, letters, &c., narrating the hardships, hair-breadth escapes and death struggles of the slaves in their efforts for freedom, as related by themselves and others, or witnessed by the author; together with sketches of some of the largest stockholders, and most liberal aiders and advisers, of the road (1872)
• Walker, David (1785-1830), Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, in Four Articles (1830)
• Ward, Samuel Ringgold (1813-1872),  Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro: His Anti-Slavery Labours in the United States, Canada, and England (London: John Snow, 1855)
• Washington, Booker T. (1856-1915), “Atlanta Exposition Address” (1895)
• Washington, Booker T. (1856-1915), “History and Reminiscence of the Afro-American” A New Negro for a New Century (1900)
• Washington, Booker T. (1856-1915), Up from Slavery (1901)
• Webb, Frank J. Webb (1828-1894), The Garies and Their Friends (1857)
• Wells-Barnett, Ida B. (1862-1931), Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells
• Wells-Barnett, Ida B. (1862-1931), Mob Rule in New Orleans Robert Charles and His Fight to Death, the Story of His Life,  Burning Human Beings alive, Other Lynching Statistics (1900)
• Wells-Barnett, Ida B. (1862-1931), Southern Horrors: Lynch Laws in All Its Phases (1892)
• Wells-Barnett, Ida B. (1862-1931), The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States (1895)
• Whitfield, James M. (1822-1871), America and Other Poems (1853)
• Whitman, Albery Allson (1851-1901), An Idyl of the South: An Epic Poem in Two Parts (1901)
• Whitman, Albery Allson (1851-1901), Not a Man, and Yet a Man (1877)
• Whitman, Albery Allson (1851-1901), Twasinta’s Seminoles, or. The Rape of Flordia (1884)
• Williams, George Washington (1849-1891), History of the Negro Race in American from 1619 to 1880, 2 vols (1893)
• Williams, James (b. 1825- ?), Life and Adventures of James Williams, a Fugitive Slave, with a Full Description of the Underground Railroad (1873)
• Wilson, Harriet E. (1825-1900), Our Nig, or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black in a Two-story White House, North (1859)

Other Resources

• Henry Louis Gates Jr., Valerie Smith, et al., editors. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, 2 volumes (W.W. Norton, 3rd Edition 2014)
• The New York Public Library: The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

Image: Only known formal photograph of Harriet Jacobs, 1894, by C.M. Gilbert,  Gilbert Studios, Washington, D.C., restored by Adam Cuerden (The Journal of the Civil War Era)