The Surviving Typescript of Antera Duke’s Diary

The eighteenth-century diary of Antera Duke survives for modern readers through a chain of copying, typing and publication. The original bound volume is reported as unlocated, but Arthur W. Wilkie’s typed transcription of his extracts preserved enough of the diary to make one African-authored record of Old Calabar available to later scholars and readers.

Object Identity

Object: Wilkie’s typed transcription and translation of extracts from Antera Duke’s diary.

Reported holding institution: New College Library, University of Edinburgh, as stated by the editors of the 2010 Oxford edition.

Original writer: Antera Duke, also identified by the editors as Ntiero Edem Efiom, an Efik merchant of Duke Town, Old Calabar.

Date represented: the surviving diary material covers January 1785 to January 1788. The typed transcription is a twentieth-century preservation object based on Wilkie’s handwritten extracts.

Materials and format: public sources consulted here identify a typed transcription/typescript, but do not provide a full catalogue description, dimensions or shelfmark.

Why It Matters

The typescript matters because it carries an African-authored record from Duke Town into the present. Through it, readers encounter trade English, Efik language context, Cross River networks, local authority, family power and the Atlantic trade as seen by a powerful merchant whose own business included selling people.

That importance is not simple celebration. The record helps recover one African world, but it does not give captives an equal voice. Its value lies partly in forcing a more precise question: what does this source allow us to see, and what remains outside it?

Provenance and Survival

The 2010 editors describe William Valentine finding the bound diary in Scotland around 1907. Arthur W. Wilkie, a missionary familiar with Calabar and Efik, copied extensive passages before returning to Calabar in 1908. The original diary later disappeared during the Second World War years and was still unlocated in the editors’ account.

Wilkie’s materials were typed in 1951. The editors state that a surviving typed copy was held at New College Library, University of Edinburgh. Daryll Forde’s 1956 edition and the 2010 Oxford edition then helped bring the diary to broader readers.

Visit and Access

Display status: current physical display is unconfirmed. No current exhibition, public gallery display, loan or appointment-access promise for the typescript was verified during this preparation pass.

Holding versus viewing: the 2010 editors identify New College Library as the location of the surviving typed transcription, but a holding statement is not the same as public display. Readers should consult University of Edinburgh special collections and New College Library access guidance before planning any visit.

Last checked: 2026-10-10.

Financial Context

No reliable public sale result, published estimate or defensible comparable market range was found for the New College Library typescript during this preparation pass. That does not mean the source has no value. Its importance is historical, evidentiary and cultural: it preserves a rare African-authored account from an eighteenth-century Cross River world.

The 2010 Oxford University Press book has public bibliographic and commercial records, but a book listing is not a valuation of the archival typescript. Defeat History does not sell the typescript, the original diary or the book.

Connection to the Episode

E08 uses Antera Duke’s diary to turn from the Atlantic crossing toward a specific African world behind the story. This object profile follows the record’s survival: the missing original, Wilkie’s copied extracts, the surviving typescript and the editions that placed the source in readers’ hands.

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Source-reported display status: Unknown / not verified. The effective availability above applies the supplied date window; unknown dates are not inferred. Confirm access with the venue.

Defeat History does not sell objects. Historical prices, published estimates and comparable ranges are context, not an offer or a current valuation. Unknown value does not mean zero.

Actual-object image not published; image or rights information is unavailable.

Published October 10, 2026 · Updated October 10, 2026 · Report a correction