British Library
British Library: Discovering Literature: Travel, Colonialism and Slavery
From Robinson Crusoe to the anti-slavery activism of Olaudah Equiano and the letters of Ignatius Sancho: explore a range of writing produced during an age of travel, trade and colonial conquest, in which Britain vastly expanded its...
British Library
British Library: Discovering Literature: Preface to Sancho: An Act of Remembrance
Paterson Joseph describes how his research into Black British history led him to write his first play, Sancho: An Act of Remembrance. In this one-man show, Paterson Joseph inhabits the life of Ignatius Sancho, the 18th-century composer,...
British Library
British Library: Discovering Literature: Voices in the Campaign for Abolition
From the mid 18th century, Africans and people of African descent - many of them former slaves - began to write down their stories. This article describes these writings and assesses their role in the abolition of slavery.
British Library
British Library: Discovering Literature: Travel, Trade and the Expansion of the British Empire
In the 17th century, London was at the center of global trade, with goods and individuals arriving in the capital from all over the world. This article looks at how travel, trade, and empire shaped the works of Daniel Defoe, Alexander...
British Library
British Library: Discovering Literature: The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment's emphasis on reason shaped philosophical, political, and scientific discourse from the late 17th to the early 19th century. This article traces the Enlightenment back to its roots in the aftermath of the Civil War, and...
British Library
British Library: Discovering Literature: Letters, Letter Writing and Epistolary Novels
This article explores the real and fictional letters published in the 18th century, from the correspondence of Alexander Pope and Ignatius Sancho to Samuel Richardson's hugely popular epistolary novel "Pamela" and the works it inspired.
British Library
British Library: Discovering Literature: African Writers and Black Thought in 18th Century Britain
This article describes how four writers, taken from Africa as children and sold into slavery, grew up to write works that challenged British ideas about race, called for African brotherhood, and demanded the abolition of the slave trade.