Granville Sharp's Uncovered Letter and the Zong Massacre
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Birkhauser Verlag AG
Published:13th Aug '18
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This book delineates the discovery of a previously unknown manuscript of a letter from Granville Sharp, the first British abolitionist, to the “Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty.” In the letter, Sharp demands that the Admiralty bring murder charges against the crew of the Zong for forcing 132 enslaved Africans overboard to their deaths. Uncovered by Michelle Faubert at the British Library in 2015, the letter is reproduced here, accompanied by her examination of its provenance and significance for the history of slavery and abolition. As Faubert argues, the British Library manuscript is the only fair copy of Sharp’s letter, and extraordinary evidence of Sharp’s role in the abolition of slavery.
“For sure, the book is a useful teaching aid for introductory college-level classes or for scholars just coming to the subject matter. Scholars who have done more extensive work on Sharp and the British abolitionist movement might find the book most useful for its many nuances.” (Cassander L. Smith, Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 33 (3), 2021)
“Faubert stumbled across the manuscript in the British Library (BL) while leafing through a volume of eighteenth-century pamphlets. Her book conveys the excitement of this serendipitous find and her subsequent investigation … . the book is a valuable exercise in historical detection, with informative chapters on the Zong case, Sharp’s text and its provenance, and its historical significance.” (John Coffey, Slavery & Abolition, November 21, 2020)
ISBN: 9783319927855
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 454g
166 pages
1st ed. 2018