The Caribbean has traditionally been understood as a region that did not develop a significant native literary culture until the postcolonial period. Indeed, most literary histories of the Caribbean begin with the texts associated with the independence movements of the early twentieth century.  However, as recent research has shown, although the printing press did not arrive in the Caribbean until 1718, the roots of Caribbean literary history predate its arrival.  This collection contributes to this research by filling a significant gap in literary and historical knowledge with the first collection of essays specifically focused on the literatures of the early Caribbean before 1850.

Nicole N. Aljoe is Associate Professor of English and African American Studies at Northeastern University, USA. She is co-director ofThe Early Caribbean Digital Archive and editor ofCaribbeana: The Journal of the Early Caribbean Society.Author ofCreole Testimonies: Slave Narratives from the British West Indies, 1709-1836(Palgrave, 2012), she also co-editedJourneys of the Slave Narrative in the Early Americas (2014).

Brycchan Carey is Professor of English at Northumbria University, UK. He is the author of British Abolitionism and the Rhetoric of Sensibility: Writing, Sentiment, and Slavery, 17601807 (Palgrave, 2005) and From Peace to Freedom: Quaker Rhetoric and the Birth of American Antislavery, 16581761 (2012). His edition of Olaudah Equianos Interesting Narrative was published in 2018.

Thomas W. Krise is President Emeritus and Professor of English at Pacific Lutheran Universityin Tacoma, Washington, USA.  A former president of the Early Caribbean Society and the Society of Early Americanists, he is the editor ofCaribbeana: An Anthology of English Literature of the West Indies, 1657-1777 (1999).

1 Introduction Nicole N. Aljoe, Brycchan Carey, and Thomas W. Krise.-2 Memory, Rememory, and the Moral Constitution of Caribbean Literary History Keith Sandiford.-3 Early Caribbean Evangelical Life Narrative Sue Thomas.-4 The Promise of the Tropics: Wealth, Illness, and African Bodies in Early Anglo-Caribbean Medical Writing Kelly Wisecup.-5 Order, Disorder, and Reorder: The Paradox of Creole Representations in Caribbeana (1741) Jo Anne Harris.-6 Testimonies of the Enslaved in the Caribbean Literary History Nicole N. Aljoe.-7 Beyond Bonny and Read: Blackbeards Bride and OtherWomen in Caribbean Piracy Narratives Richard Frohock.-8 Early Creole Novels in English Before 1850: Hamel,the Obeah Man and Warner Arundell: The Adventures of a Creole Candace Ward and Tim Watson.-9 Colonial Vices and Metropolitan Corrections: Satireand Slavery in the Early Caribbean Brycchan Carey.-10 Finding the Modern in Early Caribbean Literature Cassander L. Smith