Most writers associated with the first generation of British Romanticism - Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, Thelwall, and others - wrote against the slave trade. This edition collects a corpus of work which reflects the issues and theories concerning slavery and the status of the slave.

Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Bibliography -- Note on copy texts -- Part I: Anti-Slave Trade -- James Ramsay, An Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies (1784) -- Thomas Clarkson, An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species (1788) -- John Newton, Thoughts on the African Slave Trade (1788) -- Alexander Falconbridge, Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa (1788) -- The Speech of Mr Wilberforce ... on a Motion for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in the House of Commons, May the 12th , 1789 (1789) -- William Fox, An Address to the People of Great Britain on the Utility of Refraining from the Use of'West India Sugar and Rum , 4th edn (1791) -- Edmund Burke, Sketch of a Negro Code (1792) -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 'On the Slave Trade', The Watchman (1795) -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 'Review of Clarkson's History of the Slave Trade\ The Edinburgh Review (1808) -- Part II: Pro-Slave Trade -- William Beckford, Jr, Remarks Upon the Situation of Negroes in Jamaica , impartially made from a local experience of nearly thirteen years in the Island (1788) -- Raymond Harris, Scriptural Researches on the licitness of the Slave Trade, shewing its conformity with the principles of natural and revealed religion (1788) -- Bryan Edwards, A Speech delivered at a Free Conference between the Honourable Council and Assembly Jamaica On the Subject -- Mr Wilber force's Propositions in the House of Commons concerning the Slave Trade (1790) -- J. B. Holroyd, Earl of Sheffield, Observations on the Project for Abolishing the Slave Trade (1790) -- William Cobbett, 'Slave Trade', Annual Register (1802) -- Notes.