Description
Book SynopsisBotkin has compiled and analyzed plays, novels, and folklore about Three-Fingered Jack in order to show how the story of this hero-villain has evolved as it traveled from the Caribbean to England and the United States, returning to Jamaica as a tale of heroic resistance.
Trade Review"Finally, the study of Obi for which we’ve been waiting: one that moves across not just historical periods but also language, culture, and media. In
Thieving Three-Fingered Jack, Frances Botkin gives us an extraordinary study for understanding transatlantic literary relations. Few figures possess the necessary power to illuminate a region or an era, but Jack Mansong — especially in Professor Botkin’s hands — proves such a vehicle."
-- Michael Gamer * associate professor of English, University of Pennsylvania *
"With its seamless blending of disciplinary methods,
Thieving Three-Fingered Jack explains how a fugitive slave became a transatlantic legend. Botkin moves transhistorically and transnationally to describe how Jack became a fictional and theatrical icon. In the process, she highlights the many insights made possible when folklore and literary studies converge."
-- Daphne Lamothe * author of Inventing the New Negro: Narrative, Culture, and Ethnography *
"[
Thieving Three-Fingered Jack: Transatlantic Tales of a Jamaican Outlaw] discusses plays and songs written about Jack Mansong, an escaped slave turned bandit who came to be revered as a freedom fighter in Jamaica for his attacks on colonial planters." * Chronicle *
Forthcoming African American Studies Titles, 2018: A list of the latest and soon-to-be-released publications through October 2018. * Choice *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Representing Three-Fingered Jack
1. Divide and Conquer: Three-Fingered Jack and the Maroons
2. "Jack Is a MAN" Prose Obis, 1800-1870
3. Staging
Obi: Three-Fingered Jack in London and New York
4. Being Jack Mansong: Ira Aldridge and Three-Fingered Jack
5. After Emancipatio: Masquerade and Miscegenation
6.
Mansong: No Longer "Nearly Everybody Wite"
Epilogue: "The Baddest Man Around"
Acknowledgments
Notes
Works Cited
Index
