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Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Author of The Classic Slave Narratives

113+ Works 9,133 Members 94 Reviews 6 Favorited

About the Author

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was born on September 16, 1950, in Keyser, West Virginia. He received a degree in history from Yale University in 1973 and a Ph.D. from Clare College, which is part of the University of Cambridge in 1979. He is a leading scholar of African-American literature, history, and show more culture. He began working on the Black Periodical Literature Project, which uncovered lost literary works published in 1800s. He rediscovered what is believed to be the first novel published by an African-American in the United States. He republished the 1859 work by Harriet E. Wilson, entitled Our Nig, in 1983. He has written numerous books including Colored People: A Memoir, A Chronology of African-American History, The Future of the Race, Black Literature and Literary Theory, and The Signifying Monkey: Towards a Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism. In 1991, he became the head of the African-American studies department at Harvard University. He is now the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research at the university. He wrote and produced several documentaries including Wonders of the African World, America Beyond the Color Line, and African American Lives. He has also hosted PBS programs such as Wonders of the African World, Black in Latin America, and Finding Your Roots. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Henry Louis Gates Jr. speaks on a panel about race in America on the Understanding Our World Stage at the National Book Festival, August 31, 2019. Photo by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress.

Series

Works by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

The Classic Slave Narratives (1789) — Editor; Introduction — 1,088 copies
The Bondwoman's Narrative (2002) — Editor — 889 copies
Colored People: A Memoir (1994) 508 copies
Cane [Norton Critical Edition] (1988) — Editor — 482 copies
Slave Narratives (2000) — Editor — 320 copies
The Dictionary of Global Culture (1997) — Editor — 253 copies
The Future of the Race (1996) 222 copies
The Annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin (2007) — Editor — 210 copies
Black in Latin America (2011) 143 copies
Race, Writing, and Difference (1987) — Editor — 123 copies
Wonders of the African World (1999) 108 copies
Three Classic African-American Novels (1990) — Editor; Introduction — 102 copies
Lincoln on Race and Slavery (2009) — Editor — 82 copies
African American Lives (2004) — Editor — 53 copies
Black Literature and Literary Theory (1984) — Editor — 38 copies
Encyclopedia of Africa (2010) — Editor — 10 copies
Harlem Renaissance Lives (2009) 9 copies
African American Lives 2 (2008) 6 copies
Afrique Book Two: New Plays (1991) — Preface — 3 copies
Stony the Road (2021) 1 copy

Associated Works

Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) — Afterword, some editions — 18,979 copies
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) — Foreword, some editions — 4,267 copies
Twelve Years a Slave (1853) — Afterword, some editions — 3,947 copies
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912) — Introduction, some editions — 1,463 copies
Dust Tracks on a Road: An Autobiography (1942) — Editor, some editions — 1,356 copies
Mules and Men (1935) — Afterword, some editions — 1,083 copies
Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 (1935) — Editor, some editions — 799 copies
Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica (1938) — Editor — 739 copies
Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black (1859) — Editor, some editions; Introduction, some editions — 680 copies
Not Without Laughter (1930) — Foreword, some editions — 637 copies
The Complete Stories (1995) — Introduction — 464 copies
Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939) — Editor, some editions — 437 copies
Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934) — Afterword, some editions — 421 copies
God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (1900) — Editor, some editions — 382 copies
Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted (1892) — Foreword, some editions — 381 copies
The Kidnapped Prince: The Life of Olaudah Equiano (2005) — Introduction, some editions — 337 copies
Seraph on the Suwanee (1948) — Editor, some editions — 320 copies
Life Stories: Profiles from the New Yorker (2000) — Contributor — 298 copies
The Souls of Black Folk [Norton Critical Editions] (1999) — Editor — 274 copies
Criticism: Major Statements (1964) — Contributor — 220 copies
Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life (1931) — Editor, some editions — 172 copies
The Best American Essays 1995 (1995) — Contributor — 159 copies
Africa: The Art of a Continent (1995) — Contributor — 144 copies
Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept (1968) — Editor, some editions — 135 copies
The Light of Truth: Writings of an Anti-Lynching Crusader (2014) — Editor, some editions — 118 copies
Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives (2002) — Foreword — 101 copies
The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology (1997) — Contributor — 98 copies
Six Women's Slave Narratives (1988) — Foreword, some editions — 97 copies
Brotherman: The Odyssey of Black Men in America (1995) — Contributor — 91 copies
Common Culture: Reading and Writing About American Popular Culture (1995) — Contributor, some editions — 91 copies
Tenderheaded: A Comb-Bending Collection of Hair Stories (2001) — Contributor — 91 copies
The Matter of Black Lives: Writing from The New Yorker (2021) — Contributor — 90 copies
The State of the Language [1990] (1979) — Contributor — 88 copies
Rhapsodies in Black: Art of the Harlem Renaissance (1997) — Contributor; Contributor — 82 copies
Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown (1849) — Foreword — 78 copies
The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley (1988) — Foreword — 72 copies
The Portable Frederick Douglass (Penguin Classics) (2016) — Editor, some editions — 68 copies
Black Cool: One Thousand Streams of Blackness (2012) — Foreword — 57 copies
Facing History: The Black Image in American Art 1710-1940 (1991) — Introduction — 55 copies
Watchmen [2019 TV miniseries] (2019) — Self — 50 copies
Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice (1992) — Contributor — 50 copies
Encyclopedia of Black Comics (2017) — Foreword — 35 copies
More Great Railway Journeys (1996) — Contributor — 34 copies
Great Railway Journeys | More Great Railway Journeys (1997) — Contributor — 29 copies
The Harvard Guide to African-American History (2001) — Foreword — 29 copies
Race: An Anthology in the First Person (1997) — Contributor — 28 copies
Spiritual Narratives (1988) — Foreword — 22 copies
Our Gang: A Racial History of The Little Rascals (2015) — Foreword — 19 copies
The Works of Alain Locke (2012) — Foreword — 16 copies
The Black Flame Trilogy Book One: The Ordeal of Mansart (1957) — Editor, some editions — 16 copies
The Black Flame Trilogy Book Three: Worlds of Color (1961) — Editor, some editions — 15 copies
Race Relations: Opposing Viewpoints (2000) — Contributor — 14 copies
The New Negro Aesthetic: Selected Writings (2022) — Editor — 13 copies
The Black Flame Trilogy Book Two: Mansart Builds a School (1959) — Editor, some editions — 13 copies
The Oxford W. E. B. Du Bois: 19-Volume Set (1957) — Editor — 10 copies
These Hands I Know: African-American Writers on Family (2002) — Contributor — 8 copies
Faces of America [2010 TV series] (2010) — Narrator — 2 copies

Tagged

19th century (215) 20th century (340) African American (1,675) African American History (212) African American literature (278) African American studies (196) African Americans (343) African-American Literature (227) American (355) American history (355) American literature (604) anthology (236) autobiography (576) biography (682) classic (381) classics (506) ebook (169) essays (205) feminism (159) fiction (2,803) Florida (286) folklore (153) Harlem Renaissance (301) historical fiction (236) history (1,207) Kindle (254) literature (588) memoir (608) non-fiction (1,441) novel (499) own (171) race (537) racism (224) read (357) slave narrative (196) slavery (1,082) to-read (2,451) unread (190) USA (311) women (332)

Common Knowledge

Members

Reviews

In the preface to Stony The Road, historian Henry Louis Gates recalls his early interest in Reconstruction during college and how that ultimately led to this book all these years later. Readers and history buffs looking for a detailed and documented — if somewhat dry — look at the period following the Civil War into the early 20th century need look no further than this small but packed book. Gates dissects and explains the history with buckets of primary sources from the famous (W.E.B. DuBois, etc.) to the unknown and leaves no theory unexamined. Not a light read, but definitely worthwhile for those interested in a deep dive into the period.… (more)
 
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Hccpsk | 6 other reviews | Oct 21, 2023 |
I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir. Rare even tempered insight into how people actually lived and coped with racism in small town America in a time of civil rights transition. Excellent writing, excellent story telling. Absolutely recommended.
 
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Cantsaywhy | 6 other reviews | Aug 31, 2023 |
This was a book on the DAR Book Club list, and is an expanded version of a lecture the author Henry Louis Gates gave back in 2002 on the subject of poet Phillis Wheatley. Gates covers the trials of Phillis Wheatley -- several, including Founding Fathers and Thomas Jefferson -- had doubts that a young woman brought from Africa aboard a slave ship could not only learn to read and write, but compose poetry as well. Gates also delves into the changing views, both positive and negative, towards Wheatley over the years. Although this is a small volume (90 pages not including bibliography), it is big on substance.… (more)
½
 
Flagged
ValerieAndBooks | Jul 11, 2023 |
Read some of this. Had to return the book to the library.
 
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Elizabeth80 | 5 other reviews | Feb 13, 2023 |

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Associated Authors

Frederick Douglass Contributor
Olaudah Equiano Contributor
Harriet Jacobs Contributor
Mary Prince Contributor
Darwin T. Turner Contributor, Editor
Hollis Robbins Editor, Introduction
Kwame Anthony Appiah Editor, Author
Rudolph P. Byrd Contributor, Editor
Nellie Y. McKay Contributor, Editor
Jesse Sweet Screenwriter
Mary Crisp Director
Zora Neale Hurston Contributor
Alain Locke Contributor
W. E. B. Du Bois Contributor
Alice Walker Contributor
Langston Hughes Contributor
Sojourner Truth Contributor
Mark Whalan Contributor
Gayl Jones Contributor
John M. Reilly Contributor
Montgomery Gregory Contributor
Catherine L. Innes Contributor
Barbara Foley Contributor
Megan Abbott Contributor
Werner Sollors Contributor
Bernard Bell Contributor
Gorham B. MUNSON Contributor
Charles Scruggs Contributor
Arna Bontemps Contributor
David Bradley Contributor
Paul Rosenfeld Contributor
Robert Bone Contributor
Sterling A. Brown Contributor
Charles T. Davis Contributor
Robert Littell Contributor
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Harriet Ann Jacobs Contributor
Gustavus Vassa Contributor
William Craft Contributor
Nat Turner Contributor
Ellen Craft Contributor
L. Maria Child Contributor
Henry Bibb Contributor
Jacob D. Green Contributor
Hannah Crafts Contributor
Maria W. Stewart Contributor
Lynn Davis Photographer
Don Cheadle Narrator
Richard Wright Contributor
Angela Davis Contributor
bell hooks Contributor
Marita Golden Contributor
James Baldwin Contributor
Barbara Mellix Contributor
Audre Lorde Contributor
Margaret Walker Contributor
John Edgar Wideman Contributor
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Claude Brown Contributor
John Hope Franklin Contributor
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Mary E. Ashe Lee Contributor
H. Cordelia Ray Contributor
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Bryan Sinche Contributor
Robert S. Levine Contributor
Catherine Keyser Contributor
Lawrence Buell Contributor
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Jean Fagan Yellin Contributor
Priscilla Wald Contributor
Joe Nickell Contributor
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Ben Carson Narrator
Quincy Jones Narrator
Oprah Winfrey Narrator
Jesse Jackson Narrator
Alicia Keys Narrator
Ben Affleck Narrator
Tina Fey Narrator
Rick Pracher Cover designer
Jared Leeds Cover artist
M. E. Willis Narrator
Emmanuel Akyeampong Introduction

Statistics

Works
113
Also by
80
Members
9,133
Popularity
#2,632
Rating
4.0
Reviews
94
ISBNs
303
Languages
3
Favorited
6

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