This volume examines what Caribbean literature looked like before 1920 by surveying the print culture of the period. The emphasis is on narrative, including an enormous range of genres, in varying venues, and in multiple languages of the Caribbean. Essays examine lesser-known authors and writing previously marginalized as nonliterary: popular writing in newspapers and pamphlets; fiction and poetry such as romances, sentimental novels, and ballads; non-elite memoirs and letters, such as the narratives of the enslaved or the working classes, especially women. Many contributions are comparative, multilingual, and regional. Some infer the cultural presence of subaltern groups within the texts of the dominant classes. Almost all of the chapters move easily between time periods, linking texts, writers, and literary movements in ways that expand traditional notions of literary influence and canon formation. Using literary, cultural, and historical analyses, this book provides a complete re-examination of early Caribbean literature.

‘Caribbean Literature in Transition covers the literary, sociopolitical, and historical advancements and criticisms of Caribbean literature from 1800 to 2020 … The set's chronological arrangement yields insights about the varied availability of information over the three centuries. Transitions in coverage of gender, culture, and political movements represented in Caribbean literature are highlighted. Overall, the set is far more comprehensive than other collections on Caribbean literature, which makes the set excellent for up-to-date research … Highly recommended.’

D. M. Jarrett Source: Choice Connect

‘The new and timely perspectives on migration, gender, and the environment, amongst other topics, enable this series to bring attention to an incredibly diverse canon of writers, literary forms, and historical contexts. In doing so, the volumes invite readers to revisit established figures - with Walcott and Naipaul still looming large - whilst also re-examining Caribbean literary history to include a corpus of voices that are not necessarily anglophone or male-centric. For this reason, the series deserves to lay the foundations of new critical explorations into the heterogeneity and global scope of Caribbean creativity from its roots in the colonial past through to its many fluid and fragmentary strands in the present.’

Matthew Whittle Source: Journal of Postcolonial Writing