Book Review: The Curse of Caste

In 2006, Oxford University Press released its groundbreaking and well-researched edition of Julia C. Collins' The Curse of Caste, or The Slave Bride, including an editors' introduction that describes the text as "the earliest published novel by an African-American woman yet to be discovered." The unfinished novel was originally printed in installments in The Christian Recorder, a prominent African Methodist Episcopal newspaper, in 1865.

The Oxford edition includes two hypothesized conclusions – one hopeful, one tragic, both cooked up by editors William L. Andrews and Mitch Kachun – as well as a convincing defense of each ending as an alternative Collins might have considered before she died prematurely of tuberculosis.

The novel itself, with its stilted idiom and trite narrative construction, is not the most compelling reason to read this edition; more interesting are the materials flanking it – Forward (by Frances Smith Foster), Editors' Introduction, and Notes, as well as several short essays on ethics, gender, education, and literature Collins wrote during the years 1864 and 1865. The editors provide a thorough historical and ideological context to help readers appreciate the seemingly unremarkable novel as a political and intellectual triumph for Collins and the novel's preparation for public release as a breakthrough in literary scholarship.

The Curse of Caste follows the transition of a young woman named Claire Neville from her boarding school in Connecticut to an aristocratic home in Louisiana, where she serves as a governess to the Tracy family. Unaware of her African-American ancestry, Claire adjusts well to life in the antebellum South, despite the jealous ill will of the Tracys' grown daughter Isabelle. Collins reveals Claire's heritage – her grandmother was an African slave – long before Claire and the other characters discover that she is the daughter of the Tracys' son Richard and a "mulatto" woman named Lina. Their marriage was forbidden by Richard's racist, slave-holding father and took place in secret. Mr. Tracy became irate upon learning of the union, and Richard was estranged from his family as a result. Collins weaves this history of Lina and Richard into the principle narrative of Claire's self-discovery, and the novel takes on a dual structure.

The Curse of Caste likely read more gracefully in serialized form; Collins foreshadows events in the stories of both Lina and Claire so well in advance and with so little subtlety that, at least when presented continuously, the novel falls short of achieving any of the suspense for which Collins clearly strives with her melodramatic dialogue.

But reading the Oxford edition is nonetheless rewarding. The introduction and footnotes synthesize the few existing biographical details of Collins' life, and one need not enjoy every moment of the narrative to appreciate what the Pennsylvanian schoolteacher accomplished in writing the novel. Hers is the impassioned writing of one who genuinely loves literature and believes in its power to inspire progress. It reads awkwardly, with copious, at times distracting allusions to Classical mythology and high literature, but the author's optimism and faith shine through her unpracticed prose.

The content of her text reflects that she envisioned a more humane future for the United States during a highly difficult time in its history, a future towards which she actively worked as a journalist, educator, and intellectual. She demonstrates literary sophistication in her refusal to vilify white characters based solely on their status as slaveholders in the categorically anti-slavery novel. This decision may render her unpopular and conservative in the eyes of some readers, but Collins' efforts to acknowledge the humanity of individuals across barriers of race and power – an essential literary skill, however politically controversial – should not be mistaken for a lack of commitment to abolitionism.

Oxford's edition of The Curse of Caste provides a multifaceted reading experience, with Collins' fiction and creative nonfiction alongside scholarly research distilled into the editors' unpretentious, easy-to-read background material and notes. This information, despite its thoroughness, does not prevent the reader from enjoying the process of drawing his or her own conclusions about the text and its author, from inferring the other novels and scriptures that may have influenced Collins' work, and from asking his or her own questions about the complicated political and economic issues the novel raises as an artifact of United States history.

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