Our Nigis the tale of a mixed-race girl, Frado, abandoned by her white mother after the death of the child’s black father. Frado becomes the servant of the Bellmonts, a lower-middle- class white family in the free North, while slavery is still legal in the South, and suffers numerous abuses in their household. Frado’s story is a tragic one; having left the Bellmonts, she eventually marries a black fugitive slave, who later abandons her.Wilson combined and subverted two literary styles, the sentimental novel and the slave narrative, in writing Our Nig, which was drawn from her real-life experience. Her sardonic treatment of abolitionists in the novel has long perplexed scholars and readers; Foreman and Pitts explain this puzzle in their Introduction and recount Wilson’s life and career after the 1859 publication of Our Nig.

Harriet E. Wilson (1825-û1900) was born in New Hampshire, where she worked from a young age as a servant to an abusive family.
P. Gabrielle Foreman is associate professor of English and American studies at Occidental College and has received many awards and grants.
Reginald Pitts is a historical researcher and genealogist with more than twenty years-' experience.