• Foreword – Henry Louis Gates, Jr. • Acknowledgments • Introduction: Making Space for Harriet E. Wilson
• NEW HAMSHIRE'S "SHADOWS": CONTEXT AND HISTORY • Of Bottles and Books: Reconsidering the Readers of Harriet Wilson’s Our Nig – Eric Gardner
• Harriet Wilson’s Mentors: The Walkers of Worcester – Barbara A. White
• George and Timothy Blanchard: Surviving and Thriving in Nineteenth-Century Milford – Reginald H. Pitts • “As Soon as I Saw My Sable Brother, I Felt More at Home”: Sampson Battis, Harriet Wilson, and New Hampshire Town History – David H. Watters • New Hampshire Forgot: African Americans in a Community by the Sea – Valerie Cunningham • READING “SKETCHES FROM THE LIFE OF A FREE BLACK”: GENRE AND GENDER • Slavery’s Shadows: Narrative Chiaroscuro and Our Nig – Mary Louise Kete • Recovered Autobiographies and the Marketplace: Our Nig’s Generic Genealogies and Harriet Wilson’s Entrepreneurial Enterprise – P. Gabrielle Foreman • The Disorderly Girl in Harriet E. Wilson’s Our Nig – Lisa E. Green • Beyond the Page: Rape and the Failure of Genre – Cassandra Jackson
• Miss Marsh’s Uncommon School Reform – Eve Allegra Raimon • Fairy Tales and Our Nig: Feminist Approaches to Teaching Harriet Wilson’s Novel – Helen Frink • “A FAITHFUL BAND OF SUPPORTERS AND DEFENDERS”: PERSONAL REFLECTIONS
• Losing Equilibrium: Harriet E. Wilson, Frado, and Me – John Ernest • Discovering Harriet Wilson in My Own Backyard – William Allen • A Conversation with Tami Sanders – Gloria Henry • Not Somewhere Else, But Here – JerriAnne Boggis • Contributors • Index