“Our Nig: Sketches from the Life of a Free Black is an autobiographical novel by Harriet E. Wilson. First published in 1859,[1]it was rediscovered in 1981 by Henry Louis Gates Jr.[2] and was subsequently reissued with an introduction by Gates (London: Allison & Busby, 1984).[3] Our Nig has since been republished in several other editions.[4] It was long considered the first novel published by an African-American woman in North America,[5][6] though that record is now contested by another manuscript found by Gates, The Bondwoman's Narrative, which may have been written a few years earlier.” - Wikipedia
Read it online.