October 31, 2019
"Last spring, I sat in the Beinecke Library’s Reading Room, poring over a manuscript copy of Hannah Crafts’ “The Bondwoman’s Narrative.” I saw the meandering cursive writings on the page and where she must have pressed her pen harder into the paper, creating blotches of ink. I was writing a paper about the novel for my English seminar and had read the version I’d gotten from the Yale Bookstore for class. But seeing the manuscript version brought the text alive in a way it hadn’t been before; I felt closer to the author, closer to the words."
