List of Illustrations Introduction: By Way of an Open Letter to My Sister LyricsWhat''s You Lookin'' at Me Fer? Love Is Jes a Thing o'' Fancy You Loves Yo'' Gal? Creole Candio, One Sweet Kiss On Friendship - Phillis Wheatley (1769) Philis'' Reply - Phillis Wheatley (1774) Behave Yourself, from Freedom''s Journal (1827) Lines to My------ - George Moses Horton (1843) Courting in Connecticut, from Provincial Freeman (1855) To Annie, from the Pacific Appeal (1862) To Miss W - A. I[slay] Walden (1873?) Dedicated to a Young Lady - A. I[slay] Walden (1873) A Negro Love Song - Paul Laurence Dunbar (1895) Dinah Kneading Dough - Paul Laurence Dunbar (1899) Show Your Love - James E. McGirt (1901) The Parting Kiss - Jos. D. H. Heard (1901) Jessie and I - Timothy Thomas Fortune (1905) Kiss Me Again - Samuel Alfred Beadle (1912) Love''s Lament - Olive Ward Bush-Banks (1914) Filled with You - Olive Ward Bush-Banks (1920) LyricsDoes You Lak Strawberries? - Anonymous W''en I Wus a "Roustabout," - Anonymous She Hug Me - Anonymous A Letter - Anonymous You Nasty Dog! - Anonymous Pretty Liddle Pink - Anonymous Is It So? from Freedom''s Journal (1827) Stanzas, from Freedom''s Journal (1828) To Eliza - George Moses Horton (1829) Forget Me Not - Ann Plato (1841) Farewell to Frances - George Moses Horton (1865) A Love Song - John Willis Menard (1879) A Double Standard - Frances E[llen] W[atkins] Harper (1893) Sence You Went Away - James Weldon Johnson (1900) Regret - Olive Ward Bush-Banks (1914) Violets - Alice Dunbar Nelson (1917) The Heart of a Woman - Georgia Douglas Johnson (1918) FictionA Christmas Sketch - Mrs. M.

B. Lambert (1882) Violets - Alice Dunbar Nelson (1895) "There Was One Time!" - Jessie Fauset (1917) LettersFrom Phillis Wheatley to Obour Tanner (1773) From Harriet to Freedom''s Journal (1827) From Amelia to Freedom''s Journal (1827) From Criticus to Freedom''s Journal (1827) From Tom Little to Freedom''s Journal (1827) From Henry H. Garnet to "Dear Friend" (1837) From William H. Wormley to Catto (1860) From Addie Brown to Rebecca Primus (1859-1867) Autobiographical AccountsWilliam Grimes, from Life of William Grimes (1855) James Williams, from Life and Adventures of James Williams (1893) Fannie Berry, from Federal Writers Project (ca. 1937) -- LyricsAurore Pradère - Anonymous W''en I Goes to Marry - Anonymous Lines, Written on hearing a beautiful Young Lady express a determination to live an Old Maid, from Freedom''s Journal (1828) A Young Lady''s Soliloquy, from the Christian Recorder (1864) The Cheerless Condition of Bachelorship, George Moses Horton (1865) Report, Frances E[llen] W[atkins] Harper (1867) Advice to Girls, Frances E[llen] W[atkins] Harper (1868) The Young Man''s Comforter, A. I[slay] Walden (1873) One to Love, A. I[slay] Walden (1873) FictionA Woman and an Angel, from Provincial Freeman (1855) The Two Offers, Frances Ellen Watkins [Harper] (1859) NonfictionOn Marriage, from The Doctrines and Discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (1817) A Bachelor''s Thermometer, from Freedom''s Journal (1827) The Old Maid''s Diary, from Freedom''s Journal (1827) "Sic a Wife," from Freedom''s Journal (1828) An Unmarried Woman, from Freedom''s Journal (1828) A Gold Repeater, from Freedom''s Journal (1828) Lewis White Advertises, from Freedom''s Journal (1829) Two School Girls - Ann Plato (1841) A Bachelor Advertises, from Provincial Freeman (1855) Matrimony, from Repository of Religion and Literature (1859) To Avoid a Bad Husband, from the Christian Recorder (1861) The Pleasures of Single Life, from the Pacific Appeal (1864) Young Ladies of To-Day, from the Christian Recorder (1864) How to Make Bean Soup, from the Christian Recorder (1865) Yoked Unequally, from the Christian Recorder (1876) Bigamy, from Life and Adventures of James Williams (1893) LyricsWedding Colors - Anonymous Slave Marriage - Anonymous Written in a Bride''s Album - A[fred] G[ibbs] Campbell (1883) Marriage - Mary Weston Fordham (1897) FictionConversation, from Southern Workman (1895) NonfictionMiseries of an Engaged Man, from Freedom''s Journal (1828) Miseries of an Engaged Woman, from Freedom''s Journal (1828) Getting Married without Knowing How It Was to Be Done, from the Christian Recorder (1861) Marriage of Rev. John Beckett to Miss Kate Campbell, from the Christian Recorder (1876) Autobiographical AccountsThomas Tompkins, from Freedom''s Journal William Grimes, from Life of William Grimes Harriet Jacobs, from Incidents in the Life When Two of the Slaves, Harriett McFarlin Payne, from Rawick,American Slave: A Composite Autobiography (ca.

1937) The War Went On, from Ophelia Settle Egypt, Unwritten History of Slavery Iffen Any of the Slaves, Aunt Virginia Bell from Rawick, American Slave: A Composite Autobiography (ca. 1937) I Had a Nice Weddin'', Sarah Allen, from Rawick, American Slave: A Composite Autobiography (ca. 1937) De Way Dey Done, Jeff Calhoun, from Rawick, American Slave: A Composite Autobiography (ca. 1937) LyricsThree Months Married - Anonymous To a Lady on the Death of Her Husband - Phillis Wheatley (1772) To the Bride, from Freedom''s Journal (1828) Connubial Felicity - George Moses Horton (1845) The Fugitive''s Wife - Frances Ellen Watkins [Harper] (1857) The Old Couple, from the Christian Recorder The Wife''s Invocation - John Menard Willis (1879) To Elder T. Wellington Henderson, from the Christian Recorder (1879) Dearest - Robert C. O. Benjamin (1883) To My Absent Wife - A[fred] G[ibbs] Campbell (1883) To Mr. and Mrs.

W. F. Johnson - Frances E[llen] W[atkins] Harper (1886) Tired - Fenton Johnson (1919) FictionDialogue between a Newly Married Couple, from Provincial Freeman (1855) Mr. Pepper''s Wife, from Provincial Freeman (1855) Patrick Brown''s First Love, from the Anglo-African Magazine (1859) Anecdotal: An Old and True Friend, from the Christian Recorder (1869) Octoroon Slave of Cuba - Thomas Detter (1871) The Wife of His Youth - Charles W. Chesnutt (1899) Bro''r Abr''m Jimson''s Wedding - Pauline E. Hopkins (1901) NonfictionWhisper to a Wife, from Colored American (1837) The Intemperate Husband, from Colored American (1837) Tell Your Wife, from Pacific Appeal (1862) A Chapter for Young Husbands, from the Christian Recorder (1864) A Tin Wedding, from the Christian Recorder (1876) A Bereaved Wife, from the Christian Recorder (1880) LettersFrom Jane Stephens to Freedom''s Journal (1827) From James Stephens to Freedom''s Journal (1827) From George Pleasant to Agnes Hobbs (1833) From Marie Perkins to Husband (1852) From Abream Scriven to Wife (1858) From Harriet Newby to Dangerfield Newby (1859) From Harriet Newby to Dangerfield Newby (1859) From Ann to Husband (1864) Autobiographical AccountsJarena Lee, from Life and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee (1836) Lunsford Lane, from Narrative of Lunsford Lane (1848) Henry Bibb, from The Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb (1849) Josiah Henson, from Father Henson''s Story of His Own Life (1858) Noah Davis, from A Narrative of the Life of Rev. Noah Davis (1859) J. D.

Green, from The Narrative of the Life of J. D. Green (1864) Elizabeth Keckley, from Behind the Scenes (1868) LyricsDaughter''s Inquiry - Ann Plato (1841) Our Family Tree - Joseph Cephas Holly (1853) My Child, from Provincial Freeman (1855) Old Grimes'' Son, from Life of William Grimes (1855) The Home for Me, from the Christian Recorder (1872) The Lonely Mother - Fenton Johnson (1916) FictionCharles and Clara Hayes - Mrs. Lucie S. Day (1853) Dialogue Between a Mother and Her Children on thePrecious Stones - Mrs. Sarah Douglas (1859) The Voice of the Rich Pudding - Gertrude D[orsey] Browne (1907) LettersFrom John H. Rapier to His Son John (1857) From Parker Smith to "My dear Sir" (1861) From Rebecca Primus to Parents and Sister (1976) From Dave Waldro to Cousin (1867) Information Wanted, from the Christian Recorder (1864-1893) Information Wanted from the Christian Recorder, January 6, 1893 (1893) NonfictionThe Dying Bed of a Mother, from Colored American (1837) The Use of Grandmothers, from the Christian Recorder (1864) Aunt Jennie the Old Maid, from the Christian Recorder (1873) Autobiographical AccountsSamuel Ringgold Ward, from Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro (1855) Williams Grimes, from Life of William Grimes (1855) Thomas Jones, from Narrative of a Refugee Slave (1857) James Williams, from Life and Adventures of James Williams (1893) My Mother as I Recall Her, Rosetta Douglass Sprague (1900) Of the Passing of the First-Born, W. E.

B. DuBois (1901) Suggestions for Further Reading.