Sapphira and the slave girl (Cather) 237

Sapphira and the slave girl is Willa Cather's last novel and quite different to her earlier work. Set in Virginia as opposed to the frontier, it was written (according to the introduction) at a time in her life when she was becoming more reflective, and thus she began to draw on the experiences of her early life, living in this area until she was eight years old.

It tells the story of Sapphira, a millers wife, confined to a wheelchair, who in the 1850s is one of the few West Virginians left owning slaves; her husband Henry is increasingly unhappy about this. Nonethless when Sapphira becomes irrationally jealous of her young slave girl Nancy and wishes to sell her, she is overruled by Henry. So she comes up with a plan to ruin the girl.

I didn't feel that this book packed the punch of the other books that I have read by Cather - Sapphira wasn't especially likeable nor the storng female-lead character that I encountered in My Antonia and O Pioneers. But it was well worth reading for the contrast that it makes to her other works.

It's been published twice by Virago, and I'm lucky enough to have the original green version with a very pretty cover. Unfortunately this scan isn't terribly clear.