At The Conversation, Sam George writes about The Black Vampyre: A Legend of St. Domingo by Uriah Derick D’Arcy. “What is so remarkable about this story is that it is an anti-slavery narrative from the early 1800s which also contains America’s first vampire who is Black. It is also perhaps the first short story to advocate the emancipation of slaves, released 14 years before Lydia Child published An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans, which is widely considered the first anti-slavery book.” (Thanks, Wendy!)