The Female American: Or, the Adventures of Unca Eliza Winkfield

by Burnham, Michelle; Winkfield, Unca Eliza; Burnham, Michelle

• ISBN13: 9781551112480
• ISBN10: 1551112485
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-10-01
• Publisher: Broadview Pr

Summary

When it first appeared in 1767, The Female American was called a "sort of second Robinson Crusoe; full of wonders." Indeed, The Female American is an adventure novel about an English protagonist shipwrecked on a deserted isle, where survival requires both individual ingenuity and careful negotiations with visiting local Indians. But what most distinguishes Winkfield's novel is her protagonist, a woman who is of mixed race. Though the era's popular novels typically featured women in the confining contexts of the home and the bourgeois marriage market, Winkfield's novel portrays an autonomous and mobile heroine living alone in the wilds of the New World, independently interacting with both Native Americans and visiting Europeans. Moreover, The Female American is one of the earliest novelistic efforts to articulate an American identity, and more specifically to investigate what that identity might promise for women.Along with discussion of authorship issues, the Broadview edition contains excerpts from English and American source texts. This is the only edition available.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	7	(2)
Introduction	9	(20)
A Note on the Text	29	(2)
The Female American	31	(126)
Appendix A: ``English'' Sources	157	(18)
Aphra Behn	157	(2)
Daniel Defoe	159	(13)
Peter Longueville	172	(3)
Appendix B: ``American'' Sources	175	(17)
Thomas Hariot	176	(4)
George Percy	180	(3)
John Smith	183	(9)
Appendix C: Reviews of The Female American	192	(1)
The Monthly Review	192	(1)
The Critical Review	192	(1)
Works Cited/Recommended Reading	193