Cambridge (Masterplots II: African American Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Caryl Phillips
- First Published: 1991
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Historical realism
- Time of Work: The early nineteenth century
- Setting: The West Indies and England
- Principal Characters: Cambridge, Emily Cartwright, Arnold Brown, Stella
- Genres: Long fiction, Historical fiction, Postcolonial literature
- Subjects: Traveling or travelers, Blacks, Nineteenth century, Slavery or slaves, England or English people, Plantations or plantation life, Reality, Victims, Violence, West Indies
- Locales: England, West Indies
The Novel
Cambridge, Caryl Phillips’ fifth novel, is a complex feat of historical imagining. Cambridge attempts to reconstruct the spirit of the age in which it is set. This ambitious, and largely successful, attempt conditions the work’s language and form. The book is written in a style that reflects not only the literary fashion of the novel’s time period but also the habits of mind of the time. The absence of, among other salient details, the name of the Caribbean island on which the greater portion of the book’s action takes place also emphasizes the...
[The entire page is 2679 words long]
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