The Bondwoman's Narrative Read Online Free PDF Page A

tracing historical figures using censuses and indices such as those created by the Church of Jesus
     Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which I had used to authenticate Harriet Wilson’s
Our Nig
almost two decades ago, I had no experience with the depth of detail that a scientist could glean from what, to a layman
     at least, appeared to be faded brown ink on fragile, crumbling paper. Nothing prepared me for the subtlety or the depth of
     analysis that a historical-document examiner can force a holograph manuscript to yield.
    I began the process of authentication by sharing the manuscript with Leslie A. Morris, the Curator of Manuscripts in the Harvard
     College Library. Ms. Morris concluded that “in its physical form, the manuscript is typically mid-nineteenth century, perhaps
     dating from 1850s or 1860s.” A “date of 1855–1860,” she concluded, “was certainly possible.” 14 She encouraged me to approach a paper conservator.
    I turned to Craigen W. Bowen, the Philip and Lynn Strauss Conservator of Works of Art on Paper and Deputy Director of Conservation
     at the Harvard University Art Museums. Bowen concurred with Ms. Morris’s dating: “the characteristics of the paper, binding
     and ink,” she wrote, “are commensurate with a mid-nineteenth-century date of origin.” 15
    Next I asked Wyatt Houston Day, the bookseller and appraiser who had authenticated the manuscript for the Swann Galleries,
     to share his thoughts with me. Day, considering “the style of writing, the paper and the ink,” concluded that the manuscript
     had been written “in the 1850s.” Although he said that he could not be more precise about the date of origin, he was certain
     that it had been written before the start of the Civil War:
    I can say unequivocally that the manuscript was written before 1861, because had it been written afterward, it would have
     most certainly contained some mention of the war or at least secession.
    Moreover, Day concluded, “given the style of the narrative, the handwriting and most important, the tone of the ink and type
     of paper,” it was “probably [written in] the first half of the decade” of the 1850s. 16
    Laurence Kirshbaum, a friend and the chairman and CEO of AOL Time Warner Book Group, suggested that I have the manuscript
     examined by Kenneth W. Rendell, a well-known dealer in historical documents, to date the ink that Crafts had used to write
     her text. If, indeed, the manuscript had been written before the start of the Civil War, the author had to have used iron-gall
     ink. I drove the manuscript to Rendell’s splendid offices, a converted Victorian mansion in South Natick, Massachusetts. If
     this manuscript was the first novel written by a female slave—and possibly the first novel written by a black woman—then identifying
     the kind of ink that she had used would be pivotal.
    Rendell invited me to peer down the lens of his microscope before sharing his verdict with me. “What you are looking at, young
     man,” he intoned, “is iron-gall ink,” widely in use until 1860. Rendell thought it likely that the manuscript had been created
     as early as 1855. Rendell also demonstrated that this was Crafts’s “composing copy” and not “a fair copy” (meaning a second
     or third draft). He also concluded that the manuscript had been bound much later than it had been written, possibly as late
     as 1880. 17 Rendell suggested that the services of Dr. Joe Nickell should be engaged to establish definitively the date of the manuscript.
     Kirshbaum agreed.
    As I said, nothing in my experience as a graduate student of English literature or a professor of literature for the past
     twenty-five years had prepared me for the depth of detail of the results of Nickell’s examination, nor for the sheer beauty
     of the rigors of his procedures and the subtleties of his conclusions.
    Dr. Nickell describes himself as “an investigator and historical-document examiner.” He has written seventeen