Introduction: a Black history of prodigy, a new view on man
'Babe belov'd': Phillis Wheatley and the grammar of early American childhood
'Wilt thou bring my baby home?': Tom Wiggins and the unending Antebellum family
The anatomy of Sammy Tubbs: Black emancipation and the human's reconstruction
'Oscar Moore can tell you': unbinding brightness in the archive of a wonderful boy
'This is the end of the story no it isint': anarranging Philippa
Schuyler's scrapbook archive
Epilogue : "to be held, free".