Gustavus Vassa (Olaudah Equiano) was the face and the voice of the antislavery movement in England at the end of the eighteenth century. This collection by Karlee Anne Sapoznik assembles his published and unpublished works from the mid-1760s to the late-1790s. Since most of the documents date from the 1780s and the 1790s, this collection shows us how the author of a bestseller dealt with the increased scrutiny that befell him. The Interesting Narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African was a hit. It went through nine editions between its publications in 1789 and the author's death in 1797; it was translated into Dutch, German, and Russian. Vassa controlled the publication of each English edition and sold copies throughout the British Isles, going on multiple book tours.

As an antislavery activist, Olaudah Equiano might be as popular today as he was in the 1790s, and yet many misconceptions still exist around him, starting with his name. As Paul Lovejoy's concise introduction reminds us, Equiano insisted on being called Gustavus Vassa. It was the name he received from his master, Captain Pascal, when he was taken to England, the country that was to become his home. Vassa received many other names: Olaudah Equiano as a child in Igboland; Michael as cargo on the Middle Passage; and, Jacob as a slave in Virginia. Vassa preferred to use his pen name in professional and personal settings. In the first edition of The Interesting Narrative, he wrote that, as a slave, he ‘was obliged to bear the present name [Vassa] by which I have been known ever since’. When the ninth edition of the book came out in 1794, the name of a slave had become the name of a celebrity.

We know that Vassa's legitimacy as an author and as an African frequently came under attack and Sapoznik's volume shows how Vassa defended himself. While some documents have been published before, for example in Folarin Shyllon's Black People in Britain 1555–1833 and in Vincent Carreta's edition of The Interesting Narrative, Sapoznik has painstakingly reconstructed Vassa's paper trail drawing from various archives. The 125 documents are classified by genre from legal records to newspaper articles, including a section Sapoznik entitles ‘Possible Attributions’. Each of the five sections opens with a very short introduction. The documents are short, generally one-half page in length. Sapoznik's presence as an editor is discreet. She decides not to include much information about the historical and social context, leaving the readers to form their own interpretation. Since Vassa travelled so much and engaged in different ventures, it is sometimes hard to keep track of the timeline. The detailed chronology at the end of the volume is a precious aid. Saponik has also traced Vassa's connections and has identified the people, places, and events referred to in the primary sources. The inclusion of maps is a helpful addition to the book.

This volume will be a valuable contribution to any course on the abolitionist movement or social reform and is a valuable companion to Vassa's autobiography. The Letters and Other Writings paints the picture of a complex and well-connected individual and offers a wonderful opportunity to explore Vassa's work from new perspectives. As Sapoznik notes, more remains to be uncovered. Documentation is fragmented and uneven. Some crucial aspects of Vassa's life are missing, for example his involvement with a Mosquito Shore plantation and his marriage to a Euro-British woman. This volume might be particularly interesting for those studying Anglo-American print culture. Not only was Vassa a self-made man, he was also a shrewd self-promoter. Acutely aware of what we would today call his ‘brand’, he relentlessly advertised his persona as an author, a former slave, and an Afro-British. The character references Vassa took with him on his tours of the British Isles emphasize this aspect. As William Langworthy wrote during Vassa's visit to Bath in 1793, ‘His business [sic] in your part of the world is to promote the sale of his book’ (p. 64). Saponik's collection is also unexpectedly moving. Vassa negotiated his way in a precarious world; several documents mention that his physical integrity was often in jeopardy. Some pages are genuinely poignant: Vassa's will, in which he made sure to provide for his two daughters, is juxtaposed with a photo of the memorial plaque for his eldest who died at the age of four, a mere three months after her father. The epitaph ‘A child of colour haply not thine own/Her father born of Afric's sun-burnt race’ reminds us that Vassa's life was indeed a human story.