In 1951, the bibliographer Dorothy Porter bought an old manuscript from a rare-books dealer for $85—“The Bondwoman’s Narrative,” an unpublished, handwritten novel discovered in New Jersey. Its author ...

If Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. is correct, his recent literary find, a manuscript called “The Bondwoman’s Narrative,” recently published by Warner Books, isn’t just the only known novel written by ...

Nothing intrigues quite the way an old manuscript does: there's the story told in its pages, but there's also the story of the pages. In this volume's lively, provocative introduction, Gates, Harvard ...

"The Life Times of Hannah Crafts" delves into the history of the first Black female novelist. Pictured here: Slave houses, Broad Street near Wheeler House, n.d. Courtesy of E. Frank Stephenson Jr.