The first major attempt to relate canonical Romantic texts to writings of the African diaspora.

Introduction; 1. The English slave trade and abolitionism; 2. Radical dissent and spiritual autobiography: Joanna Southcott, John Newton and William Cowper; 3. Romanticism and abolitionism: Mary Wollstonecraft, William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth; 4. Cross-cultural contact: John Stedman, Thomas Jefferson and the slaves; 5. The diasporic identity: language and the paradigms of liberation; 6. The early slave narratives: Jupiter Hammon, John Marrant and Ottobah Gronniosaw; 7. Phyllis Wheatley: poems and letters; 8. Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative; 9. Robert Wedderburn and mulatto discourse.

Helen Thomas has worked as a journalist for more than thirty years in both radio and print, and is an experienced presenter and producer.