Woman of Colour, The (Anon)

The Woman of Colour (anon.) is an epistolary novel that is notable for its portrayal of its mixed-race heroine, Olivia Fairfield. Born on a plantation in Jamaica, Olivia never meets her mother, an enslaved woman named Marcia. In his will, her father dictates that she marry her English cousin Augustus. Olivia writes about her experiences on a ship crossing the Atlantic, in mercantile ports and London, and journeying across the British countryside. Published in the immediate aftermath of Britain’s abolition of the slave trade, the novel attempts to reshape attitudes about people of African descent. Olivia condemns racial prejudice as well as rapacious Nabobs who remind her of plantation owners in the West Indies. The conspicuous choice of the epistolary form also draws attention to the novel’s sampling of various genres and aesthetic modes that were popular from the mid eighteenth to early nineteenth century, reminding its readership of the imbrication of cultural, social, and economic forces.