The Cambridge Companion to Slavery in American Literature brings together leading scholars to examine the significance of slavery in American literature from the eighteenth century to the present day. In addition to stressing how central slavery has been to the study of American culture, this Companion provides students with a broad introduction to an impressive range of authors including Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Toni Morrison. Accessible to students and academics alike, this Companion surveys the critical landscape of a major field and lays the foundations for future studies. 'In putting together the collection, Tawil aims for the unification of the aesthetic and historical, and in many ways he succeeds. … this collection is diverse in outlook and worthy of consideration.' A. S. Newson-Horst, Choice This book brings together leading scholars to examine slavery in American literature from the eighteenth century to the present day. Ezra Tawil is Associate Professor of English at the University of Rochester, New York. He is the author of The Making of Racial Sentiment: Slavery and the Birth of the Frontier Romance (Cambridge, 2006) and of numerous essays in such journals as Novel, Early American Literature, and Diaspora. He is currently completing a book entitled The American Style: Literary Exceptionalism and Transatlantic Culture.