Most Literary analyses of slave narratives consider them either within the context of white mainstream writing or as the beginnings of a rich literary tradition. Scholars have – in part to promote racial equality – reckoned their value in relation to the interventions the narratives have performed with white textual forms and/or as extensions of the oral tradition. Whether as propaganda for abolition or an artform in their own right, the political and rhetorical power of slave narratives cannot be exaggerated – nor can the link between their popularity and their influence on the development of U.S. literature be ignored. My goal here is to open an investigation into the nature of their impact, putting the slave narratives within the context of the history of authorship and the surrounding literary marketplace.