 Compared to the 100 autobiographical works by blacks published before 1865, Crafts exceeded them in the number of quotes from other texts, demonstrating her wide reading.Literacy for slaves was an act of resistance, and scholars are interested in evidence of what they were reading.Literary scholar Hollis Robbins first observed that Crafts must have read Charles Dickens' "Bleak House" (although this was not included on Wheeler's library list), Walter Scott's "Rob Roy", and "Scientific American".