Trinidad and Tobago / All works
Novel
Emmanuel Appadocca
Michel Maxwell Philip · 1854
Synopsis
Emmanuel Appadocca is the mixed-race son of a rich cane planter, James Wilmington, who dishonoured his Black mother and abandoned him. Having become the leader of buccaneers, a proud and cultivated man who discourses on morality as much as he commands, he sets off in pursuit of his father to make him pay for his fault. Beneath the sea adventure, the author denounces the way the planters of America treat the children they have by their slaves.
Context
The novel appeared in London in 1854, in two volumes, in the very year its author, aged twenty-four, was called to the bar; it is held to be the first fiction published by a native of Trinidad, if not the first Caribbean novel. In 1931, C. L. R. James saw in Philip the most brilliant mind of his time. The book was reissued in 1997 by Selwyn Cudjoe and William E. Cain, and Port of Spain celebrates a Maxwell Philip Day every 29 November.
Who it is for
A Victorian adventure novel, with an ornate prose style, for those who want to read the birth certificate of the Trinidadian novel.
Prizes and reception
It is now studied as an early protest against slavery, combining adventure and philosophy.
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