The Myth of Aunt Jemima is a bold and exciting look at the way three centuries of white women writers have tackled the subject of race in both Britain and America. Diane Roberts challenges the widely-held belief that white women writers have simply acquiesed in majority cultural inscriptions of race. The Myth of Aunt Jemima shows how 'the mythic spheres of race, of the separation of black and white into low and high, other and originary, tainted and pure, remain to trouble a society struggling still to free itself from debilitating racial representations.'
Beautifully written with a powerful series of textual readings, The Myth of Aunt Jemima pushes at the boundaries of thought around the issues of race and gender. An important and innovative book.

Diane Roberts is a Professor of English at the University of Alabama.

INTRODUCTION 1 UNCLE TOM'S CABIN An authentic ghost story 2 "INSTIGATED BY THE DEVIL" The South and Harriet Beecher Stowe 3 MISS WEIGHT, MRS TROLLOPE AND MISS MARTINEAU or, Three British women look at American slavery 4 THE STRANGE CAREER OF FANNY KEMBLE 5 OLLA PODRIDA AMERICA Lydia Maria Child and radical miscegenation; 6 JEMIMA AND JEZEBEL IN THE NEW SOUTH Twentieth-century women on race; Epilogue: Making the word the thing