The Life of William Apess, Pequot (H. Eugene and Lillian Youngs Lehman Series) - Hardcover

Philip F. Gura is William S. Newman Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His many books include Truth's Ragged Edge: The Early American Novel and American Transcendentalism: A History, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Finally, we have an extensive biography of the Native American writer and polemicist, William Apess, one of Native America's most significant early intellectuals. But The Life of William Apess, Pequot is more than just a biography; it is an investigation into how the underrepresented intellectual communities of early American people of color constructed and presented ideas of themselves, looking at the development of American political and legal institutions as they grappled with race, freedom, and land tenure. This is a book of exemplary detail, a much-needed contribution to our understanding of early America and its Native societies.--Phillip Round, author of Removable Type: Histories of the Book in Indian Country, 1663–1880
Extensively researched and absorbingly written, The Life of William Apess, Pequot delivers by far the most thorough cultural-historical reconstruction to date of the life, career, and significance of antebellum New England's most important Native American writer-activist.--Lawrence Buell, Powell M. Cabot Research Professor of American Literature, Harvard University, author of New England Literary Culture and Emerson
Through painstaking research, Philip Gura's remarkable book brings to life a legendary figure in American letters. He does it by portraying William Apess as a player in the dynamic history of Indigenous New England and the nation as a whole. I love this work and I recommend it highly, not only as literary knowledge but also as cultural, social, and historical knowledge.--Simon J. Ortiz, Arizona State University, author of From Sand Creek, Out There Somewhere, and Beyond the Reach of Time and Change