Le nègre comme il y a peu de blancs, par l'auteur de "Cécile, fille d'Achmet III"
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Related resources
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- The negro as there are few white men translation has paratext
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- The negro equalled by few Europeans. Translated from the French translation has other edition
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- Il negro che ha pochi bianchi simili translation
Summary (extracted citations)
From the author's preface (translated by Trapp): ""I am sensible that a novel is unfit to effect so great a revolution; but everybody reads novels, and it is perhaps a stroke of good policy, first to ingratiate those, we wish to serve afterwards… My heart teaches me what humanity must do, but eloquence would surely fail me to teach it to others. I therefore attempted only to make the blacks popular. Which are my means? Sensibility and the love of virtue. These are the only gifts of nature, I may boast of… Benevolent hearts will guess that which is dear to me, they will not take it unkind, that I cover none but that, which a may may enjoy without creating himself enemies – the glory of rederning the unfortunate interesting".
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Notes
Joseph Lavallée’s novel used literary means to serve the abolitionist cause. In his preface, Lavallée announces that his aim is "to make the blacks popular". His novel was quite well received in France and was translated into English twice the following year.
See LAVALLÉE (Joseph), 'Le Nègre comme il y a peu de blancs'. Présentation de Carminella Biondi (L’Harmattan, coll. Autrement mêmes, 2014).