Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: Human, person, self: blackness and well-being -- The ruled and regulated self: medicine and race science in the black new world -- Ancient ideals and the healthy self: Mary Ann Shadd's plea for emigration and Martin Robison Delany's condition, elevation, emigration, and destiny -- The self in pain: colonialism, disability, and national identity: Mary Prince, Sarah Pooley, and Lavina Wormeny -- The protective self: slave sexual health, crime, and U.S. legal personhood: Celia's murder trial and Harriet Jacobs's incidents -- The promising self: sexual expression, heroism, and revolution: Frederick Douglass's "The heroic slave" and Martin Robison Delany's Blake -- Conclusion: Black intellectuals, black well-being: questions about the future of black American literary studies.

By analyzing slave narratives, emigration polemics, and black-authored fiction pieces, Stone reveals many reflections of injury, illness, disease, and disability, but she also highlights the equally numerous emphases on well-being by black authors.

Description based on print version record.