Funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities supported the electronic publication of this title. Text transcribed by Apex Data Services, Inc. Related by Herself. With a Supplement by the Editor. Photocopy supplied by University of Wisconsin Library. Original grammar, punctuation, and spelling have been preserved. Encountered typographical errors have been preserved. All footnotes are inserted at the point of reference within paragraphs. This electronic edition has been transcribed from a photocopy supplied by University of Wisconsin Library.
All quotation marks, em dashes and ampersand have been transcribed as entity references. All double right and left quotation marks are encoded as " and " respectively. All single right and left quotation marks are encoded as ' and ' respectively.
All em dashes are encoded as -- Indentation in lines has not been preserved. Blacks -- West Indies -- Biography. Fugitive slaves -- West Indies -- Biography. Slaves -- West Indies -- Biography. Slavery -- West Indies -- History -- 18th century. THE idea of writing Mary Prince's history was first suggested by herself. She wished it to be done, she said, that good people in England might hear from a slave what a slave had felt and suffered; and a letter of her late master's, which will be found in the Supplement, induced me to accede to her wish without farther delay.
The more immediate object of the publication will afterwards appear. The narrative was taken down from Mary's own lips by a lady who happened to be at the time residing in my family as a visitor.
It was written out fully, with all the narrator's repetitions and prolixities, and afterwards pruned into its present shape; retaining, as far as was practicable, Mary's exact expressions and peculiar phraseology. No fact of importance has been omitted, and not a single circumstance or sentiment has been added.
