Outcasts and Angels

The New Anthology of Deaf Characters in Literature

Edna Edith Sayers

• Publisher: Gallaudet University Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781563685392
• eBook ISBN: 9781563685408
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

In 1976, Trent Batson and Eugene Bergman released their classic Angels and Outcasts: An Anthology of Deaf Characters in Literature. In it, they featured works from the 19th and 20th centuries by well-known authors such as Charles Dickens and Eudora Welty. They also presented less-well-known deaf authors, and they prefaced each excerpt with remarks on context, societal perceptions, and the dignity due to deaf people. Since then, much has transpired, turning around the literary criticism regarding portrayals of deaf people in print. Edna Edith Sayers reflects these changes in her new collection Outcasts and Angels: The New Anthology of Deaf Characters in Literature.

       Sayers mines the same literary vein as the first volume with rich new results. Her anthology also introduces rare works by early masters such as Daniel Defoe. She includes three new deaf authors, Charlotte Elizabeth, Howard T. Hofsteater, and Douglas Bullard, who offer compelling evidence of the attitudes toward deaf people current in their eras. In search of commonalities and comparisons, Sayers reveals that the defining elements of deaf literary characters are fluid and subtly different beyond the predominant dueling stereotypes of preternaturally spiritual beings and thuggish troglodytes.

       Outcasts and Angels demonstrates these subtle variations in writings by Ambrose Bierce, Isak Dinesen, Nadine Gordimer, and Flannery O'Connor. Stories by Juozas Grušas, Julian Barnes, and many other international authors broaden the scope of this updated inquiry into the deaf literary character. Sayer's preface and closing essay bring any disparate parts together, completing Outcasts and Angels as a fitting, contemporary companion to the original classic collection.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• From The Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell - Daniel Defoe (England, 1729)
• From Letter VIII: The Dumb Boy, in Personal Recollections - Charlotte Elizabeth (England, 1841)
• Jerry and Clarinda - Henry William Bishop (USA, 1868)
• The Unknown - Auguste Villiers de L’Isle-Adam (France, 1883)
• Chickamauga - Ambrose Bierce (USA, 1891)
• Clavis - Annie Trumbull Slosson (USA, 1896)
• Under the Electrics: A Show-Lady Is Eloquent - Richard Dehan (England, 1915)
• We Were Just Saying - Viola Meynell (England, 1924)
• The Wife of the Deaf Man - Gianna Manzini (Italy, 1929)
• Dummy - Howard T. Hofsteater (USA, 1930)
• Portrait of a Shaman - Kim Tongni (Korea, 1936)
• Karomenya, From Out of Africa - Isak Dinesen (Denmark, 1937)
• Fairer Than the Sun - Juozas Grušas (Lithuania, 1937)
• Should Worry - Weldon Kees (USA, 1939)
• Miss Cudahy of Stowes Landing - George P. Elliott (USA, 1954)
• The Life You Save May Be Your Own - Flannery O’Connor (USA, 1955)
• The Edge of Sound - Gordon Woodward (Canada, 1955)
• Charmed Lives - Nadine Gordimer (Republic of South Africa, 1956)
• The Sibyl - Warren Kliewer (USA, 1964)
• And Sarah Laughed - Joanne Greenberg (USA, 1967)
• The Sexton’s Deaf Son - Rasheed A. Gbadamosi (Nigeria, 1969)
• Like a Native - Joanne Greenberg (USA, 1985)
• From Chapter 3 of Islay - Douglas Bullard (USA, 1986)
• Speech - Richard Umans (USA, 1986)
• My Father’s Darling - Carole Glickfeld (USA, 1989)
• Miracles in America - Sheila Kohler (USA/Republic of South Africa, 1990)
• A Quarrelsome Man - Pauline Melville (England/Guyana, 1990)
• The Secret - Florence V. Mayberry (USA, 1992)
• Of Silence and Slow Time - Karawynn Long (USA, 1995)
• Stone Deaf - Morris Smith USA, 1997
• Into Silence - Marlin Barton (USA, 2009)
• The Limner - Julian Barnes (England, 2009)
• Reading Deaf Characters
• Works Cited
• Permissions and Credits