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Sapphira and the Slave Girl
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Sapphira and the Slave Girl

novel by Cather
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Sapphira and the Slave Girl, novel by Willa Cather, published in 1940. The novel is set in Cather’s native Virginia in the mid-1800s on the estate of a declining slaveholding family. Sapphira and the Slave Girl centres on the family’s matriarch, Sapphira Colbert, and her attempt to sell Nancy Till, a slave girl of mixed descent. Sapphira’s plot is foiled by her husband, Henry, and their widowed daughter, Rachel Blake. A confident, strong-willed invalid, Sapphira has earned the respect of many of her slaves despite her subtle cruelty toward Nancy. Henry is a pious miller whose simple upbringing and passivity ...(100 of 164 words)

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