In 1732 Ambrose Madison, grandfather of the future president, languished for weeks in a sickbed then died. The death, soon after his arrival on the plantation, bore hallmarks of what planters assumed to be traditional African medicine. African slaves were suspected of poisoning their master. For Montpelier, his estate, and for Virginia, this was a watershed moment. Murder at Montpelier: Igbo Africans in Virginia examines the consequences of Madison's death and the ways in which this event shaped both white slaveholding society and the surrounding slave culture. At Montpelier, now owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and open to the public, Igbo slaves under the directions of white overseers had been felling trees, clearing land, and planting tobacco and other crops for five years before Madison arrived. This deadly initial encounter between American colonial master and African slave community irrevocably changed both whites and blacks. This book explores the many broader meanings of this suspected murder and its aftermath. It weaves together a series of transformations that followed, such as the negotiation of master-slave relations, the transformation of Igbo culture in the New World, and the social memory of a particular slave community. For the first time, the book presents the larger history of the slave community at James Madison's Montpelier-over the five generations from the 1720s through the 1850s and beyond. Murder at Montpelier: Igbo Africans in Virginia revises many assumptions about how Africans survived enslavement, the middle passage, and grueling labor as chattel in North America. The importance of Igbo among the colonial slave population makes this work a controversial reappraisal of how Africans made themselves "African Americans" in Virginia. Douglas B. Chambers is a professor in the history department at the University of Southern Mississippi.

From the author of the National Book Award finalist Black Leopard, Red Wolf and the WINNER of the 2015 Man Booker Prize for A Brief History of Seven Killings "An undeniable success.” — The New York Times Book Review A true triumph of voice and storytelling, The Book of Night Women rings with both profound authenticity and a distinctly contemporary energy. It is the story of Lilith, born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the eighteenth century. Even at her birth, the slave women around her recognize a dark power that they- and she-will come to both revere and fear. The Night Women, as they call themselves, have long been plotting a slave revolt, and as Lilith comes of age they see her as the key to their plans. But when she begins to understand her own feelings, desires, and identity, Lilith starts to push at the edges of what is imaginable for the life of a slave woman, and risks becoming the conspiracy's weak link. But the real revelation of the book-the secret to the stirring imagery and insistent prose-is Marlon James himself, a young writer at once breath­takingly daring and wholly in command of his craft.

"Excellent…Tucker’s chronicle of the world of 17th-century science in London and Paris is fascinating." —The Economist In December 1667, maverick physician Jean Denis transfused calf’s blood into one of Paris’s most notorious madmen. Days later, the madman was dead and Denis was framed for murder. A riveting exposé of the fierce debates, deadly politics, and cutthroat rivalries behind the first transfusion experiments, Blood Work takes us from dissection rooms in palaces to the streets of Paris, providing an unforgettable portrait of an era that wrestled with the same questions about morality and experimentation that haunt medical science today.

This volume introduces a new way to study the experiences of runaway slaves by defining different “spaces of freedom” they inhabited. It also provides a groundbreaking continental view of fugitive slave migration, moving beyond the usual regional or national approaches to explore locations in Canada, the U.S. North and South, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Using newspapers, advertisements, and new demographic data, contributors show how events like the Revolutionary War and westward expansion shaped the slave experience. Contributors investigate sites of formal freedom, where slavery was abolished and refugees were legally free, to determine the extent to which fugitive slaves experienced freedom in places like Canada while still being subject to racism. In sites of semiformal freedom, as in the northern United States, fugitives’ claims to freedom were precarious because state abolition laws conflicted with federal fugitive slave laws. Contributors show how local committees strategized to interfere with the work of slave catchers to protect refugees. Sites of informal freedom were created within the slaveholding South, where runaways who felt relocating to distant destinations was too risky formed maroon communities or attempted to blend in with free black populations. These individuals procured false documents or changed their names to avoid detection and pass as free. The essays discuss slaves’ motivations for choosing these destinations, the social networks that supported their plans, what it was like to settle in their new societies, and how slave flight impacted broader debates about slavery. This volume redraws the map of escape and emancipation during this period, emphasizing the importance of place in defining the meaning and extent of freedom. Contributors: Kyle Ainsworth | Mekala Audain | Gordon S. Barker | Sylviane A. Diouf | Roy E. Finkenbine | Graham Russell Gao Hodges | Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie | Viola Franziska Müller | James David Nichols | Damian Alan Pargas | Matthew Pinsker A volume in the series Southern Dissent, edited by Stanley Harrold and Randall M. Miller

Betty Shanks was brutally murdered 70 years ago. This book’s third edition reveals Betty’s secret life as documented in an ASIO file, which states that: - Betty was in an ‘intimate association’ with a young married man who was a member of the Communist Party of Australia. - Betty’s best friend from schooldays at Brisbane Girls Grammar School and at the University of Queensland, Winifred Cowin, worked for ASIO before committing suicide in 1958. - An ASIO officer arrived in Brisbane on Sunday 21 September 1952 to recruit Betty, only to be told that she had been murdered the previous Friday night. Ted Duhs alleges that Betty was killed by a man she met at the Grange tram terminus as she returned home from a night class at Brisbane’s Central Tech. This man, referred to as ‘the man in the brown suit’, was seen by four witnesses, including Marie Patton who is still alive. Minutes before Betty was attacked, Marie saw him 30 yards from the murder scene. Evidence suggests he was Eric Sterry. His daughter, Desche, is still alive, and in 1999 her story “My Dad Killed Betty Shanks” was published in The Courier Mail, after her earlier attempts to persuade the police were unsuccessful.

The Past Is Not Dead is a collection of twenty-one literary and historical essays that will mark the 50th anniversary of the Southern Quarterly, one of the oldest scholarly journals (founded in 1962) dedicated to southern studies. Like its companion volume, Personal Souths, The Past Is Not Dead features the best of the work published in the journal. Essays represent every decade of the journal's history, from the 1960s to the 2000s. Topics covered range from historical essays on the French and Indian War, the New Deal, and Emmett Till's influence on the Black Panther Party to literary figures including William Faulkner, Robert Penn Warren, Richard Wright, Eudora Welty and Carson McCullers. Important regional subjects like the Natchez Trace, the Yazoo Basin, the Choctaw Indians, and Mississippi blues are given special attention. Contributors range from noted literary critics such as Margaret Walker Alexander, Virginia Spencer Carr, Susan V. Donaldson, James Justus, and Willie Morris to scholars of African-American studies such as Robert L. Hall and Manning Marble and historians including John Ray Skates, Martha Swain, and Randy Sparks. Collectively, the essays in this volume enrich and illuminate our understanding of southern history, literature, and culture.

THE ONLY WAY OUT IS TO SOLVE THE CASE. Everyone knows the first forty-eight hours are the most important after a homicide. But for Detective Luke Guillory, the first forty-eight hours are all he gets—over and over and over. Luke is the laughingstock of the Sacramento P.D.: the son of a disgraced police chief, he has one of the lowest close rates on the force. But it could all change: after a freak power outage, Luke finds himself reliving the same two days after a local real estate developer is murdered. With the help of a cynical retired detective, he discovers he must catch the murderer to escape the time loop. But his own department has turned against him, his mother's in jail, and the web of deceit complicates everything about the case. Can Luke solve the murder—and get his life back? --------------- Get this new first-in-series murder mystery with a time travel twist from Paul Austin Ardoin, the USA TODAY Bestselling Author of the Fenway Stevenson Mysteries!

It is the early fall of 1755 in the backcountry of Virginia. The British army has suffered a stunning defeat at the hands of the French and their Indian allies in the opening battle of the French and Indian War, leaving the frontier in flames and open to attacks from the enemy. William Kay, a young minister well-known to the colonial establishment for his years long stand against a powerful planter and vestryman bent on revenge, is murdered. Three of Kay’s slaves are accused and swiftly condemned to the brutal form of justice reserved for the enslaved, while another man who had threatened Kay’s life disappears from the scene. When the colonial governor and officials aligned with him suppress the news of the unprecedented crime and the court record of the slave trial, the killing of Reverend Kay becomes lost to history––until now.

“A love letter to bookstores and libraries.” —The Boston Globe The dramatic story of how a humble bookseller fought against incredible odds to bring one of the most important books of the 20th century to the world in this new novel from the author of The Girl in White Gloves. A PopSugar Much-Anticipated 2022 Novel ∙ A BookTrib Top Ten Historical Fiction Book of Spring ∙ A SheReads’ Best Literary Historical Fiction Coming in 2022 ∙ A Reader’s Digest’s Best Books for Women Written by Female Authors ∙ A BookBub Best Historical Fiction Book of 2022 When bookish young American Sylvia Beach opens Shakespeare and Company on a quiet street in Paris in 1919, she has no idea that she and her new bookstore will change the course of literature itself. Shakespeare and Company is more than a bookstore and lending library: Many of the prominent writers of the Lost Generation, like Ernest Hemingway, consider it a second home. It's where some of the most important literary friendships of the twentieth century are forged—none more so than the one between Irish writer James Joyce and Sylvia herself. When Joyce's controversial novel Ulysses is banned, Beach takes a massive risk and publishes it under the auspices of Shakespeare and Company. But the success and notoriety of publishing the most infamous and influential book of the century comes with steep costs. The future of her beloved store itself is threatened when Ulysses' success brings other publishers to woo Joyce away. Her most cherished relationships are put to the test as Paris is plunged deeper into the Depression and many expatriate friends return to America. As she faces painful personal and financial crises, Sylvia—a woman who has made it her mission to honor the life-changing impact of books—must decide what Shakespeare and Company truly means to her.