improvement' (Said, 1873, p. v). It includes a preface and thirteen chapters dealing with different topics. Also included in the book is a supplementary chapter on Bladen Springs in Alabama.  
Although published in the United States of America, Said's narrative differs in two major respects from others published there. First, Said was not enslaved in the United States. This case was not altogether unique; Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua had not been a slave in the United States but rather in Brazil and escaped from slavery in New York, publishing his narrative in Detroit (Law and Lovejoy, 2007). Unlike Baquaqua's narrative, however, Said's account details the author's experiences of slavery in Africa and the Middle East. Second, unlike most ex-slave narratives published in the United States, Said's autobiography was by an African-born former slave rather than by a person born into slavery in the Americas.  
Said's narrative was written in English exclusively in the first person, making it clear that he, unlike Baquaqua and other former slaves, did not need an editor or mediator to have his story told. The narrative is virtually free from grammatical deficiencies and other problems, which reflects his amazing command of language. Said presents the voice of a slave as well as that of an African critic of slavery. He describes his African homeland, his enslavement, his unsuccessful attempts to return to West Africa, his early career as a valet and his evolution as a lecturer and teacher in several institutions in the United States. In addition to these remarkable achievements, the book excels in providing the reader with vivid details of slavery in Africa. He is strangely silent, however, on his emancipation, which must have taken place in Istanbul, before he travelled to Russia.