Some scholars believe Nat Turner's actions may have been led by mental illness as opposed to religion like Turner made clear in his confessions. Some historians consider Gray's account of Turner's 'confessions' to be told with prejudice, and recently one writer has alleged that Gray's account is itself a fabrication. Styron's ambitious novel attempts to imagine the character of Nat Turner it does not purport to describe accurately or authoritatively the events as they occurred. He claimed to receive messages, and these messages told him to follow through with his rebellion killing white families with their own weapons. In the historical confessions, Turner claims to have been divinely inspired, charged with a mission from God to lead a slave uprising and destroy the white race. The novel is based on an extant document, the 'confession' of Turner to the white lawyer Thomas Ruffin Gray. Time Magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. It is based on The Confessions of Nat Turner: The Leader of the Late Insurrection in Southampton, Virginia, a first-hand account of Turner's confessions published by a local lawyer, Thomas Ruffin Gray, in 1831. Presented as a first-person narrative by historical figure Nat Turner, the novel concerns Nat Turner's slave rebellion in Virginia in 1831, but does not always depict the events accurately.

The Confessions of Nat Turner is a 1967 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by American writer William Styron.

The confessions of nat turner book