sciences of the time. The Anglo-African Magazine often also published articles on science, particularly the science of race. The subject of Delany's serial novel is a successful slave revolt in the Southern states and the founding of a new black country in Cuba. Samuel R. Delany described it as "about as close to an SF-style alternate history novel as you can get." The serialization ended prematurely, but the entire novel was eventually published in serial form in the Weekly Anglo-African in weekly installments from November 1861 to May 1862. The Anglo-African was considered the premier publication featuring the work of black scientists and theorists; Blake's inclusion in its serials highlights its connection to a larger political context focused on black citizenship in the antebellum South. Further, while it incorporates elements of the fugitive slave narrative, Blakes narrator is also a scientist, whose focus on data collection and research stand in repudiation of the racial science of the day. In fact, this reflects one of Delany's major themes: that Africa and its contributions to science and math were foundational to the Western world. In terms of genre, Blake represents an early example of black utopian speculative fiction. In Passing and the African American Novel, Maria Giulia Fabi writes, "Less convinced of the libratory potential of technological progress than their white counterparts, African American utopian writers focused on the process of individual and collective ideological change rather than on the accomplished perfection of utopia itself." It is also a proto-Afrofuturist novel. Lisa Yaszek writes, "[I]n a move that would set the tone for nearly a century of Afrofuturist SF to come," Delany explores the ambivalence and precarity of black cultural survival while simultaneously arguing for black technological prowess. Further, because of Delany's interest in black separatism and the establishment of a black state, Blake is an extension and exploration of the themes and ideas he explored in his 1852 publication of The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States. Blake was never published as a complete, stand-alone novel in the nineteenth century. Charles W. Chesnutt (1858–1932) was a noted writer of folkloric hoodoo stories. His collection The Conjure Woman (1899) is the first known speculative fiction collection written by a person of color. The 1892 novel Iola Leroy by Frances Harper (1825–1911), the leading black woman poet of the 19th century, has been described as the