Sapphira is the protagonist of Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940), the last novel by Willa Cather and the Virginia-born writer’s only book set entirely in the state. Based on an incident in Cather’s own family, in which her maternal grandmother helped a slave escape in 1856, the novel details the complicated marriage of Henry and Sapphira Colbert, who operate a mill and small farm in Back Creek outside Winchester in the years before the American Civil War (1861–1865). Sapphira wrongly suspects that one of her slaves, Nancy, is in an intimate relationship with her husband, and manipulates those around her to exact revenge. Henry and the couple’s daughter, Rachel, intervene by helping Nancy flee to Canada. At the time of its release, Sapphira and the Slave Girl was praised by the New York Times for examining “the question of slavery without any portentous fanfare,” but in the years since, the book has not been widely read. Most critics have charged Sapphira with being racist and overly nostalgic, while a few have defended it as a brilliant inversion of old stereotypes and a coded exploration of sexual desire.
Further Reading:
Willa Cather, Sapphira and the Slave Girl: The Scholarly Edition with Historical Essay and Explanatory Notes by Ann Romines (1940, 2009)
This Vignette Provided By
Brendan Wolfe, associate editor of Encyclopedia Virginia
