Epistolarity and Black Futurity in The Woman of Colour.
In this essay, I analyze the form of the epistolary novel The Woman of Colour, A Tale (1808), tracing protagonist Olivia Fairfield's future not towards narrative resolution but through the formal possibilities of epistolarity itself. Attending to the novel's editorial intrusions alongside Olivia's e...
| Publicado en: | Eighteenth Century Fiction Vol. 38; no. 1; pp. 19 - 39 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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University of Toronto Press
Jan2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=193530089&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 193530089 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 08406286 7SD jtl: Eighteenth Century Fiction issn: 08406286 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jan2026 vid: 38 iid: 1 pid: 678 pub: University of Toronto Press artinfo: ui: 193530089 10.3138/ecf-2025-0014 ppf: 19 ppct: 20 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 332KB tig: atl: Epistolarity and Black Futurity in The Woman of Colour. aug: au: Kim, Joey su: Woman of Colour: A Tale, The (Book) Slavery Black feminism Social movements Black feminists sug: subj: Woman of Colour: A Tale, The (Book) Slavery Black feminism Social movements Black feminists ab: In this essay, I analyze the form of the epistolary novel The Woman of Colour, A Tale (1808), tracing protagonist Olivia Fairfield's future not towards narrative resolution but through the formal possibilities of epistolarity itself. Attending to the novel's editorial intrusions alongside Olivia's epistolary practice, I argue that Olivia's selective disclosure, narrative control, and acts of withholding resist editorial authority and imagine a future beyond marriage, inheritance, and white control. Situating the novel within Black feminist theories of futurity, loss, and abolition time, I argue that Olivia's epistolary practice maintains a mode of opacity and privacy through which Olivia lives in and with loss, registering loss as part of Black quotidian life lived largely in refusal rather than redemption. I end by reading Olivia's decision to return to Jamaica with Dido as an unresolved futurity shaped by legal ambiguity, risk, and the ongoing work of abolition. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Eighteenth Century Fiction is the property of University of Toronto Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Eighteenth Century Fiction holder: University of Toronto Press dt: @attributes: year: 2026 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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