The Woman of Colour

by Anonymous

The Woman of Colour is a unique literary account of a black heiress’ life immediately after the abolition of the British slave trade. Olivia Fairfield, the biracial heroine and orphaned daughter of a slaveholder, must travel from Jamaica to England, and as a condition of her father’s will either marry her Caucasian first cousin or become dependent on his mercenary elder brother and sister-in-law. As Olivia decides between these two conflicting possibilities, her letters recount her impressions of Britain and its inhabitants as only a black woman could record them. She gives scathing descriptions of London, Bristol, and the British, as well as progressive critiques of race, racism, and slavery. The narrative follows her life from the heights of her arranged marriage to its swift descent into annulment and destitution, only to culminate in her resurrection as a self-proclaimed “widow” who flouts the conventional marriage plot.

The appendices, which include contemporary reviews of the novel, historical documents on race and inheritance in Jamaica, and examples of other women of colour in early British prose fiction, will further inspire readers to rethink issues of race, gender, class, and empire from an African woman’s perspective.

Genres: Classics, School, Fiction, 19th Century, Read For School, Historical Fiction, Adult

343 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1808

About the author

Books can be attributed to "Anonymous" for several reasons:

* They are officially published under that name
* They are traditional stories not attributed to a specific author
* They are religious texts not generally attributed to a specific author

Books whose authorship is merely uncertain should be attributed to Unknown.

See also: Anonymous

Reviews

[Abigail Bok · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Woman of Colour is an anonymous novelette published in 1808, the year after Britain abolished the slave trade (but not ownership of slaves). It has been reprinted in a fascinating scholarly edition, with introduction, judicious annotations, and a wealth of complementary information about portrayals of people of color in the literature of the “long eighteenth century.”

The heroine is Olivia Fairfield, the illegitimate daughter of a white Jamaican plantation owner and one of his slaves. Her mother died in childbirth but her father raised Olivia lovingly, with every advantage of comfort and education. Her father dies as the story begins, leaving the young woman in peculiar circumstances through a will that seeks to dictate her future. Olivia must travel to England and either marry a cousin she has never seen (with her very large dowry as inducement to the young man), or become the dependent of another cousin and his wife, who will take control of the money instead and dole it out to her as they see fit.

This seems both an artificial contrivance and a terrible fate for a beloved daughter, but the editor of this edition assures us that it is neither. In Jamaica at the time, no white person could award a person of color more than £2,000 pounds, and Olivia’s inheritance is £60,000 pounds, so the will might be a way of securing the money for her use through relations who might be presumed to care about what becomes of her. And there was a story in the news in 1806 about a man whose will detailed similar conditions for his two illegitimate mulatto daughters.

So Olivia obeys her father’s wishes, and at first it seems that all will be well for her. The cousin who would take her on if she doesn’t marry proves to be mercenary and his wife treats Olivia with racist cruelty, but the one she is supposed to marry, Augustus Merton, is gentle and considerate and looks remarkably like her father (a bit creepy but not too surprising given that they’re related). Although Augustus is carrying a sorrow that he doesn’t name, he soon comes to value Olivia for her character and demeanor, and Olivia moves swiftly from gratitude to love, in the usual way of heroines of the era.

But Augustus’s past comes back to haunt them (literally). He had a previous love whom he married clandestinely, and then was led to believe that she died—but of course she hasn’t and soon appears in their lives. Ruined in the eyes of the world, Olivia flees to a remote cottage where she serendipitously encounters a prior acquaintance who has long been in love with her. He would like to marry her but she now considers herself a widow. Her money, which had been stripped from her and Augustus when his prior marriage became known, gets providentially restored to her, and she decides to return to Jamaica an unmarried but rich woman.

The plot is melodramatic, as is the behavior of the more virtuous characters in the book, but there are many clues that the romance-novel cloak of the book conceals a more didactic intent. Olivia may be an idealized heroine, but by contrast to the usual stereotypes with which people of color are caricatured in British fiction of the time, she also demonstrates originality and agency to a startling degree. Her virtues stand in contrast to the vices of many of the English characters and make her a living rebuke to their pretensions and their prejudices. She has a Black servant named Dido, who at first seems to be a caricature of the simple-minded slave laid on to entertain the grosser tastes of English readers, but through Dido’s actions and her interactions with her mistress, the author subtly reveals many subversive commonalities between them, furthering the book’s message about the humanity of all people, regardless of skin color or status.

The book plays with other common tropes of the period’s fiction to revolutionary ends. Many characters are worthy but impoverished and therefore vulnerable to the cruelties of heartless but wealthy relations. The similarities in their stories, regardless of the differences in their status and circumstances, reinforce the book’s egalitarian bent. We see a tribe of resisters coming together to push back against their society’s hierarchical biases. And the familiar plot elements are flipped on their heads by the whole concept of the book: instead of the perspective being that of a “normal” white European looking on the exotic, it is the “exotic” character who is treated as normal and interrogates the assumptions of the white Europeans.

The Woman of Colour is not particularly well written: it uses the epistolary format in ways often awkward, and the language is embarrassingly hysterical, alternating with pious treacle. But I found the thought behind the book quite riveting, and the editor has assembled a package of context around it that is enormously useful to anyone interested in pursuing this vein of British popular fiction further.

[Katie Lumsden · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really fascinating novel, and certainly one I'd recommend. This edition had a lot of brilliant accompanying material too.

[Katarzyna Bartoszynska · Rating 5 out of 5]

Come for the biracial heroine navigating 18th-century British attitudes about race, stay for the surprisingly bureaucratic and convoluted twist on the marriage plot!

[Kandice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would recommend this solely based on its status as an 1808 novel narrated by a Jamaican woman of mixed race (and when was the last time you came across one of those?), but I also found it engrossing and culturally insightful. About two thirds of the way through, the plot disintegrates into the typical eighteenth-century tangle of bizarre plot twists, long-lost relatives reuniting, and generally improbable circumstances, but, as someone who spends a lot of time reading such things, I can't say it detracted from my overall enjoyment. (Indeed, part of the fun of the eighteenth-century novel is trying to predict the tangled webs of secret familial relations.) Add in some surprising and potentially radical subversion of racial tropes, genre-play, and a failed proposal scene, and you have scholarly delight.

[Elaine]

Read this for class and it makes for a great book to study (the introduction offered a lot of helpful contextualization too) - but it was also so entertaining... all the marriage plot antics and melodramatic crying fits you would expect from an early 19th century novel, plus a girlboss protagonist and an easy to hate villain

[jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

maybe unfair to rate class reading but i almost fell asleep a couple times while reading this. reading this also made me realize that close reading is not my strong suit potentially (i thought that the big secret olivia’s fiancé was referencing was him being gay but it was having a secret dead wife as i later found out in class) but there is always opportunity to get better. also, as a non english major surrounded by english majors in this class it becomes abundantly clear that i probably should consider approaching fiction in class with a different mindset than reading for pleasure. but who’s really to say

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first noticed this book because the cover art is from a painting by one of my favorite 18th-century artists Johann Zoffany. Then the editor of the edition showed up at a friend's conference panel (which included a great reading of the Zoffany painting). I didn't think to read it until I was it was recommended to me, and I was sent my exam copy.

It's no secret that I adore Broadview Editions. Academically and aesthetically, I think they produce some of the best editions of English language texts available to the average person.

It's also no secret that I read a lot of eighteenth-century texts. It is my chosen profession, after all. Much of the time, the new texts I find are scholastically interesting (and just as I love my contemporary fluff, I enjoy eighteenth-century pulpy texts as well), but every once and a while, I read a book for research and find a fresh, well-written (by almost any standard), wonderful tale. Since graduate school, these have gotten a little more rare. Godwin's Caleb Williams was one of these happy surprises, and now so is this novel.

I'm planning to teach an eighteenth-century novel course this Spring, so a lot of my current thoughts are running along those lines. It's an epistolary novel that deals with a young woman's introduction into British life. Thematically, it connects well with Richardson's Pamela or Bruney's Evelina. Stylistically, it reminded me a bit of Maria Edgeworth (with a touch of Austen).

Without giving too much away (wondering how it is going to end was more than half the fun), it follows Olivia Fairfield's attempts to find a place within England (though Wales and Ireland play small but symbolically important roles) following her father's death. Typical turn-of-the-century stuff thus far. But, in addition to being a pious, compassionate, intelligent young woman in the mold of many heroines of the time (she's quite a bit like Edegeworth's Belinda, but with a little more heart), she is also the daughter of a West Indian planter and his slave. Many heroines need to deal with materialistic, superficial snobs, but Olivia also has to deal with racism. The publisher's summary above gives a pretty good representation of the plot (but not the fun of reading it).

With much more candor than I've seen similar texts use, this novel doesn't make excuses for (almost) any form of racism, whether in its extreme forms like slavery or in the causal "helpful" advice some of the characters give the heroine. I needed to add the almost because Olivia's maid Dido does embody many stereotypes and has internalized the plantation caste system. No one, especially not Dido, ever questions that she is "naturally" her mistresses "inferior" - it is taken for granted that Dido does not deserve to have materially or socially elevated a life as the light-skinned Olivia.

Olivia's own internalization of West Indian racial hierarchies offers more food for thought. On one hand, she frequently aligns herself with and defends slaves, condemning slavery, teaching little white boys not to be racist, etc. On the other, she is very proud of her "whiteness" and what she perceives as "English" qualities. In her frequent references to "our poor blacks," it is unclear if the possessive pronoun groups her with or a part from them. This was one of the fascinating parts of the novel.

This along with the interracial romances (including an almost Darcy-like move by one of her suitors) and the ending (the unconventionality of which is noted on in a humorous, meta-textual dialogue in the epilogue) really made this a pleasant reading experience.

And, since it is a Broadview Edition, there is a wonderful essay/introduction, appropriate and abundant footnotes, and great appendices. My favorite were probably the first three, which include other texts by and about racially ambiguous heroines from the same era - including a brief except from the pen of Jane Austen.

Now, I just need to rearrange my syllabus so I can teach it in March.

[Therese Arkenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

The modern edition, edited by Lyndon J. Dominique, includes many further readings and firsthand sources—actual wills of Jamaican planters, letters and travelogues, and excerpts from other stories featuring heiresses of color. Read the introduction after the story to avoid spoilers, but do read it for more perspective on the period and how The Woman of Colour intersects with the abolition movement, the early feminist movement, and current events at the time of its publication.

The story itself is a perfect example of why people became distraught over 18th century literature. My reading notes include the line “feel I’m being hit by a feels truck” only a few pages in—when the protagonist, Olivia Fairchild, becomes friends with kind, intelligent, and fatally ill Mrs Honeywood, who is also traveling to England with her (eligible, ahem) son. Olivia herself is sweet without being a pushover, morally pure without being implausible. And even if she verges on what some might call “Mary Sue” territory, it’s refreshing to see a woman of colour in that territory (it’s also a deliberate choice by the author, whose goal is in part to convince white Europeans to “look with a compassionate eye towards” African slaves and their descendants). Olivia’s strength of will and morals both descend from her enslaved mother, who she remembers in the opening pages, and have been cultivated by her English governess, to whom she writes the letters that make up this epistolary novel. So for what it’s worth, this passes the Bechdel test.

There isn’t a lot I can say without spoilers (which are under the readmore). The Woman of Colour is a deconstruction of several romantic tropes as well as an “activist novel” using the drama of the story to make points about abolition, race relations, and women’s rights. The setup: Olivia must marry her cousin (don’t be weirded out, it was the 1800s) in order to gain control of the sixty thousand pounds her father has left her, or alternatively her money and she herself becomes under the control greedier relatives. The story takes a Gothic twist halfway through—one some readers may find ridiculous, and some reviewers disagree over whether or not it’s adequately explained. The style is refreshing, relatively concise, with very readable dialogue. It could easily be made a movie, and honestly, I hope it one day is.

I should note that a woman “of colour” was at this time period a woman of mixed-race heritage, and when it comes to fully black characters, the book has a vein of colonialist paternalism. Olivia’s (freed, it’s implied) servant Dido speaks with a thick accent, and while Olivia clearly cares for her, the thing praised most about Dido is her “faithfulness.” Yet Olivia shows off her own “olive” complexion to a young boy to defend Dido, and repeatedly claims that she is not ashamed to be compared to her darker “brothers and sisters.” This makes the text more complex, and from a critical point of view more interesting.

Olivia’s cousin, Augustus Merton, becomes Augustus Fairchild when he marries her—taking on her name as well as her fortune, which I’m given to understand wasn’t unheard of in powerful and wealthy English families, and is also part of her father’s will. If you think Olivia’s father’s will requiring her to marry or pass her inheritance on to her odious, distant family is stupid, by the way, you’re right—characters within the text agree with you, and Dominique’s introduction suggests that, firstly, the unreasonableness of the will may actually be the point, showing how Olivia as a woman of color remains ‘enslaved’ to her white father, but also her dad may be doing the best he can, considering the limits Jamaican law placed on inheritance by people of color. Augustus himself is grieving the loss of someone he loves, as revealed by one of his own letters, but he marries Olivia out of admiration and compassion, not wanting to forsake her to his relatives who are lazy, money-grubbing, and rub their racist assumptions about Olivia in her face (she responds with cool grace and delectable sarcasm). While Augustus himself does let slip a grating line about Olivia’s color as if it’s a mark against her, his actions speak louder than his words, and I was touched in a scene later on when he kisses a tear from the grieving Olivia’s cheek when she hears of the death of Mrs Honeywood.

No, that wasn’t a spoiler—bless her, but the lady wasn’t long for the world and that was clear from her first appearance. Actual spoilers appear below. Also, they appear on the back cover of the book and in the Amazon.com product description. Tread carefully.

Dominique’s introduction compares A Woman of Colour to Jane Eyre, and for good reason. The plot twist: tenderhearted Augustus Merton is already married, and the wife he thought he’d lost is alive and well in a cottage bordering the Fairfields’ estate! She is not, I hasten to note, insane, nor does she conveniently die to clean up romantic loose ends—making this story a bit less problematic than Eyre, if also less satisfying for those who want the central couple to stick together. It’s a genuine pickle.

(As an aside, , why does Jane get all the movies? This deserves at least a miniseries. There is a biopic, incidentally, for Dido Elizabeth Belle.)

With the revelation that her husband’s first wife is still alive, making their marriage invalid—part of a nefarious scheme by Augustus’ relatives to take control of Olivia’s inheritance—Olivia retreats to a small cottage in Wales. There she begins to be courted by the fittingly-named Mr. Honeywood, with whom she traveled to England. Although genuine affection exists between the two, she refuses his proposal because she considers herself, if not Augustus’ wife, his “widow”. She made her marriage vows and will keep them, even if to the outside world they are invalid. Honeywood continues to send her some presents to improve her meager living, but despite this “nice guy” behavior he is genuinely nice about it and doesn’t pressure her, nor does he suddenly have no use for her after she refuses him. If anything, her choice to stick to her guns only makes him admire her more. As a reader, I share his feelings somewhat—I also admire Olivia, but feel sad she can’t have a happy life with this man who is offering himself to her, and who she does truly care for.

If keeping Olivia single disappoints you, you’ve been in good company since 1808, as the reviews in the appendices show. It even seems a bit problematic that one of the few women of color to be featured in a romantic historical novel ends the novel single, rather than married to a white man. However, it’s clear she is single by her own choice. Perhaps, as the Introduction points out, she is wisely avoiding another entanglement—I think a book, contemporary to Austen, which concludes with a white woman happily unmarried would be greeted with plenty of feminist excitement. For that matter, white feminists in the 18th and 19th centuries had a habit of comparing marriage to slavery—not entirely without basis, perhaps, but not quite tackling intersectionality in the way The Woman of Colour does, featuring as it does a protagonist who has to confront both.

Nor does being single mean Olivia is unworthy of marriage, as even the contemporary reviewers agreed. Merton marries her from pity but respects her; Honeywood is passionately in love. She is presented as altogether admirable and desirable, and that is part of the author’s explicitly-stated goals—to present a sympathetic heroine of color. In the end Olivia returns to Jamaica to advance the position of her “brothers and sisters,” and to reunite her her beloved governess Ms Milibanke. This is her happy ending! Although she plainly admires both Merton and Honeywood, she doesn’t require a romance in her life to be happy.

I don’t think this is the only right way to write a woman of color in the Regency period, especially considering it was written over two hundred years ago. Modern readers may prefer a more active heroine (Olivia is strong, but her strength is often demonstrated through enduring rather than pursuing), or one who gets the guy in the end. Olivia may be happy single, but for a woman who would want romance & support through marriage it seems an compromise must be negotiated. I think that’s also an interesting territory to explore in fiction. In the meantime, though, narratives like The Woman of Colour are awfully thin on the ground, and this story seems far too unjustly neglected given what a fascinating account it is, and the unique light it sheds on the intersections of race, class, and gender at this period of history.

[Sam Chase · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 3.75 stars

I was pleasantly surprised by this epistolary novel written (by?) about the experience of a woman of color living in high class eighteenth century society. Olivia Fairfield was not the typical heroine, because she had to contend with so much more than a doomed marriage: she faced blatant racism throughout her everyday life. She was undoubtedly the hero of this story, and everyone around her...not so much. If you enjoy the social commentary of authors like Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Austen, please give this hidden gem a try!

[Juliette Grégoire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really liked this

[Angela Capp · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a nineteenth-century novel book about a girl from Jamaica making her way to Britain. It starts off with Olivia on a boat right after her father had died and his will is sending her to Britain to get married. There are arcs within the book about race and people’s social standing. This book really brings to light the different classes that were in Jamaica and Britain during this time period. You can see that there are differences between the white people, free people of color with privileges, free people of color and slaves. There are some challenges that you see the main character deal with according to race and being educated. An example of this is when she is meeting Mrs. Merton, Olivia writes “I believe I held out my hand, and that lady was very near taking it in hers; but I fancy its colour disgusted her, for she recoiled a few paces (72)”. That is just one example others are people calling her “the untamed savage (85)” and “Miss Blackey (101)”. It is showing how people in Britain are reacting to Olivia being mixed race. There are different occurrences where it shows how people are shocked that Olivia is educated and like a proper British woman for the day. A one point Augustus describes Olivia saying “A very few hours served to convince me, that whatever might have been the transient impression made by the colour of Olivia, her mind and form were cast in no common mould. She has a noble and a dignified soul, which speaks in her words and actions; her person is raised above the standard of her sex, as much as her understanding and capacity (102)”. Augustus is surprised that a woman like Olivia could be educated and know what she is doing. This is an epistolary novel, which is when it is written in the format of letters which are mainly from one character. There are a couple of different themes that have been mentioned above such as race and social standing but there are a couple of others that occur in the book. One of those is marriage and how this is a big part of the book with a plot twist at the end.

This novel has an interesting end but it gets off to a slow start. There are a lot of descriptions about people and the main characters feeling that can seem to drag on. Although this does allow you to develop an attachment to the main character. Although for some it may be hard to do this, you really get to know the main characters private thoughts and what she is feeling. Being about to connect to characters is good but because the novel is in the epistolary style you only get that from one character and are not really able to fully understand the other characters in the novel. For example Olivia says “I believe I appeared much agitated; and that I expressed myself with great warmth and energy (89)”. This is what she believes happened and it may or may not be true to how other people saw and perceived what happened. What you do get of other characters is through the prospective of the main character writing the letters. Due to the novel being in letter format it can also be hard to follow sometimes and you do not really have a grasp on how long things how gone on for or how long it has been between letters. At one point in the book it says “I have let my pen lie idle on my standish, my dearest madam, for the last three weeks (105)”. This happens various times throughout the book where she does not write for a good amount of time. While this keeps the book moving forward it is hard to track how much time has actually passed since the beginning.

I would recommend this book to someone that is interested in history and really likes to get to know a character. Although this book had its ups and downs it was a good read and gave a lot of knowledge of the time period.

[Margaret Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book will be of interest to Jane Austen fans, especially those reading or viewing Sanditon and wondering about Miss Lambe. But it's not the greatest read overall.

The story itself? The introduction tells us it was very popular at the time of its original publication in 1808, which means Jane Austen might have read it and taken it into consideration as she was writing Sanditon, which is pretty interesting. However, the story is overblown and cliched. The writing style appeals to me not at all, and the story has so many novelistic cliches (the same ones Jane Austen made fun of in Northanger Abbey and much of the Juvenilia) that it made me roll my eyes a bit. Also the plotting was weird, with a lot of backstory plastered on at the end.

The eponymous heroine, the illegitimate daughter of a rich Jamaican planter and an enslaved African woman, was cherished by her father, raised as a gentlewoman and educated (the letters that make up the epistolary novel were written to her governess back in Jamaica). When her father dies, his will leaves her 60,000 pounds, but only if she goes to England and marries her cousin, the son of her father's sister. Otherwise, the money goes to her other cousin, who is already married, and he and his wife will control the money and she will live with them. We are meant to make the obvious connection of a slave owner treating his daughter like he owns her--and the thing is, under the laws of the time, even if her mother had not been enslaved, he would have had the same control.

Now Olivia's fate is not so awful, as her husband-to-be, Augustus, is an Adonis. She has a miniature to moon over on the ship, where she also meets a very nice, kind, moral, basically perfect young man named Honeywood (oh, come on) who is clearly interested in her, but he knows she is more or less engaged and leaves her alone. Olivia is okay with this as she is busy mooning over handsome Augustus. She also becomes close to Mrs. Honeywood, his mother, who is quite ill and going back to England in hope that the climate will cure her.

Fortunately for Olivia, Augustus turns out to live up to his miniature and she falls in love with him. She is pretty sure he doesn't love her, and thinks it is because he is disgusted by the darkness of her skin; it comes out that he was in love before, but the lady died. However, he is a good person and is kind to her, and they have similar tastes. They move out to the country, and through an exceedingly coincidental and melodramatic turn of events (instituted by his cruel, vindictive sister-in-law), everything falls apart. I will say the ending is kind of cool and will appeal to feminists, but how she gets there is still pretty convoluted.

So my four stars are for the introduction, which is really good and puts it in context with the time it was published, and for some aspects of the story. It is a piece very much of its time, but I think worth reading.

[Nic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Man, it was tough to choose the star rating for this one! It's a solid 3.5, really, but I don't want to put it among the 4-star reviews because those tend to be books I really like, and parts of this one were a slog.

The story itself is interesting and unusual, but it also takes up only about 140 pages in this 268-page book! The accompanying analysis, excerpts from other novels featuring women of color, and historical accounts are revealing and sometimes shocking for the weird and awful beliefs some people held. Some of the analysis is fascinating, such as the discussion of whether the book's anonymous author was actually a woman of color. There is even a specific woman, Ann Wright, who might possibly have written the book who suffered circumstances not unlike the protagonist's: she is a woman of color whose white father wrote into his will that she must marry in England or forfeit her inheritance. (The implication was that she should marry a white man, but she defied this, while keeping her inheritance, by marrying a free mixed-race man in England shortly after her father's death.)

Interesting fact: in 1808, when this book came out, a "person of color" was a far more specific term than it is today, referring to certain groups of free mixed-race people in the Americas and the Caribbean.

The story itself has both drawing-room antics and gothic drama, but is also thoroughly racially aware. Given that this book came out in 1808, it's kind of amazing that protagonist Olivia is so firmly anti-slavery and so clearly believes and states that black people have all the intellectual potential of white people. It's not uncommon, I think, for writers of historical fiction today to create characters with such views, but at the time when this novel was written, these ideas would have been far more controversial.

So there's a lot to like about this book. It might get more stars from me, but Olivia is also relentlessly moralizing and tiresomely religious. I get especially irked by her repeated insistence that bad things happen to us because we're not supposed to be TOO happy on Earth - that's what Heaven is for! Like, if we get too happy now, we might not be sufficiently excited about going to Heaven! Other characters in the novel share this belief, but I find it weird and off-putting.

Still, a very interesting experience. I might have actually liked it more had I skipped some of the additional material surrounding the novel itself, but I'm such a completist that to do that is very hard for me. Oh well.

[Felisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Olivia Fairfield is an educated Black woman who also had roots in England where her Father was from. To which she writes in an epistolary style as she embarks on a journey to England from Jamaica to fulfill her fathers vision. We learn that what other people think is best for us is sometimes not true. Olivia tries to convince herself that she is happy with her father's request and does not want to “ruin the name”. Olivia holds honor and pride with marrying Augustus due to her great love and respect for her Father who was no longer with her.
There is a constant emphasis on the time period and perspective that the English had viewed African Americans as a whole. For example, Mrs. Merton uses demeaning terms for Olivia such as “miss. Blackey” or “copper colored girl”. Furthermore, Mrs. Merton's child refers to African Americans as dirty which again shows the narrow-minded perspectives that this time period possessed following the years of slavery. However, Olivia shows her nurturing, calm, and kind nature by trying to teach the child that she is no different than he is. Her calm nature is extremely remarkable on many accounts but specifically because she made the active choice to teach rather than fight back with anger and hurt. Although, her calmness could be coming from the major theme of power struggle that Oliva bestowed throughout the novel. This calmness comes from the fact that she does not resonate with other black women who are uneducated. Olivia feels she is above other African Americans and resents comparisons that Mrs. Merton loved to make being that she does not feel she should be included in the demeaning comments, for they don't apply. The back and forth with Mrs. Merton is what created a power struggle within Olivia being she feels she is worthy as compared to Mrs. Merton’s opposing feelings.
This novel as a whole was intriguing in the respect that we got Olivia Fairfield's thoughts, experiences, and emotions. It changes the experience for the reader being able to be apart of such intimate thoughts and feelings that a person has being that you tend to become attached to the character. In comparison to a regular novel where you may have multiple different viewpoints, voices, and feelings from different characters. You may not really get the opportunity to in depth get to know a character rather than directly hearing their voice throughout an entire novel such as this one. On the contrary, the way the letters were spaced throughout the novel with no time period gave it an odd time warped feeling and the reader really had no sense of time which did not necessarily hinder the understanding of the novel but was an odd choice of style. All in all, the type of language that was used in that time period was hard to follow from time to time but was a good book to read for a change from typical writing styles.

[Sydney · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel starts off with Olivia, an African American woman, who is on a journey to England from her homeland of Jamaica. The setting of the book is mainly England, where Olivia moves to marry her cousin, Augustus. This is done by her deceased father's wishes. In order to get her inheritance, she must either live with the Mertons or marry Augustus. All is blissful until Olivia finds out the secret Augustus is hiding…

In this coming of age novel, we see themes of feminism, anti-racism, love, and the fight between good versus evil. Olivia embodies feminism and diversity, as she comes to a new land out of her comfort zone and culture. However, she does not let that stop her. She fights to end the stereotypes against women of her background. In doing so, she defends Dido, her helper, against the young Merton son and his comments about the color of her skin. Though not directly attacking Olivia, she feels responsible to teach the young boy right from wrong. She is a young, innocent woman who is faced with evil after evil, and she has to learn how to fight back with poise and intelligence. The different characters she meets along the way challenge Olivia on her values and morals. We learn that she does not crack, and continues to show her intelligent, kind and gentle soul that was uncommon among her group. When she finds out the secret Augustus is hiding, she is devastated. However, it does not keep her from living her life. She learns to be independent and strong. She finds out who truly cares for her. Who her real family is.

The beginning of this novel was dry and quite hard to follow, but once you understand the premise, you learn to love Olivia and care about her journey. I particularly enjoyed this epistolary novel. It made me feel as if Olivia was speaking to me about her life, her feelings, and her experiences. For instance, when she married Augustus, she described it so perfectly that I could picture it all; “A cold sweat seemed to moisten the hand of Augustus,-- it trembled in mine.” Each twist and turn made me want to keep reading, such as the moment she got off the boat and arrived in England, to her move with Augustus to the countryside. These experiences held my interest along the way. The only dislike I had toward this writing style was the lack of emotion from other characters. In this novel, we really only hear Olivia’s side, her emotions, and her perspective of this journey. We briefly hear from Augustus himself, and I feel we could value that experience. By hearing from the other main characters more, we would have the ability to see their own journey and possibly spot change of character. These experiences affected more than just Olivia, and yet we only sympathize with her because we know her. What about Augustus and all he went through in his lifetime? Is that why he's so reserved?

[Nate A · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of people are probably unaware of The Woman of Colour, but it is definitely one that many should know. The story follows Olivia Fairfield, a free girl of mixed-race parentage from Jamaica, as she is sent to England to marry a man named Augustus Merton. However, the Merton family is not as welcoming as one would hope. Olivia and Augustus’s marriage is marred by prejudice from his family and others, despite Olivia’s education and her ability to blend in with the high society of early 1800s England. The troubles don’t end there as something mysterious from Augustus’s past threatens to turn everything on its head.
While on the surface this story poses itself as a love story, there are also themes of the coming-of-age plot seen in many classic novels of this time. The Woman of Colour has also been described as a “protest novel”, as it is critical of the high society of England that the story takes place in, and shows a black woman as the lead character, and even heroine in a way. This would be controversial in the early 1800s, where slavery was still legal in England.
The story is uniquely written from the perspective of Olivia (mostly) as she is delivering letters to her former educator, Mrs. Milbanke, back in Jamaica. This provides a very interesting way of telling the story. This is good and bad in my opinion; good in the way that we really get into Olivia’s head, but bad in the way that certain pertinent details are omitted at the narrator’s preference. One such of this in the novel, when Olivia receives a “pompous and pedantic” letter, and responds angrily to it, but we, as the reader, do not really know what this entails, so we are just left to assume Olivia is being entirely honest. It’s good in the way that we see what Olivia really thinks about people, such as her skepticism towards Augustus’s mother throughout the novel. A meta layer of intrigue is added as this story is written by an anonymous person, and not discovered for nearly 200 years after the book takes place. At times it can be slow, especially in the beginning, but if you do decide to read this you’ll reach a point where the story becomes so intriguing you must reach it’s resolve.

[Jack Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute exceptional piece of work The Woman of Colour is the literary account of Olivia Fairfield's journey to England after the abolition of the British Slave Trade. She is forced to marry her white cousin in return of her father's fortune. Leaving her father's plantation she is forced into a society that at the start of the 18th Century cannot yet handle her in their circles. Olivia navigates these spaces with progressive attitudes towards race, slavery and racism and eventually flouting the conventions of the marriage plot and leaving England behind her.

I am extremely glad that I have been asked to read this. I honestly believe it rivals Jane Austen and indeed reads as if it was written by her. We know nothing about the author which such a pity. Truly wonderful.

[Sophia · Rating 4 out of 5]

THIS WAS REALLY GOOD

I was so engaged and there for the drama. Olivia is also funny as hell and so cutting, I love her. I think it was my favourite I’ve read in this class I’m taking (18th century lit.), and also probably up there in my favourites that I’ve read in my English degree. (I definitely would never have come across the novel without this degree, so I am *grateful*)

I don’t want to go too far, but it honestly felt reminiscent of Austen novels in terms of the society, and the narrators cutting perceptiveness. There are obvious differences of course, but the narration and story were so good! I got emotional at some points and laughed a bunch.

Would definitely recommend!!

now I just gotta write a paper on it :D

[Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great story, and a great scholarly edition. I bet it would teach well— short, engaging, with some surprising turns to it. I’m not persuaded by the editor’s speculations about authorship but they are a good provocation.

[Reilly Ingleson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I was required to read this for a class, I ultimately enjoyed it. I am extremely glad to have read it. Interesting spins/takes on regency "romance", and a great exploration of racism, colorism, classism, and more.

First class read in ENG 327 is a solid 8/10. BUT NEXT IS PRIDE AND PREJUDICE SO 10/10 HERE WE COME!

[norah · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️=3.5

was really expecting a Chekhov’s Charles Honeywood moment at the end there, but i guess not! okay! an interesting look at British abolition in the early 19th century, and especially interesting to read a book with a biracial heroine published in 1808.

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about the ending but I do love Olivia and I loved this story. Also, this is the first book I've read cover to cover for a class in over a year

[Abby McCartney · Rating 5 out of 5]

A pride and prejudice feel with different themes. Amusing and tragic characters… my favorite!

[feru · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyone should read this book!!!

[Grace Keltner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simultaneously unhinged and boring and deeply unsatisfying all at the same time???

[Chloe Damm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Drama

[Elizabeth Kerns · Rating 3 out of 5]

she’s not a mary sue, but this is definitely a novel in which the plot is a bunch of horrible things happening to a painfully (uninterestingly?) good person

[Seneca · Rating 3 out of 5]

little women ass ending

[Tommy Perez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not obsessed…