One Brown Girl and 1/4
(1909) is a novel by Thomas MacDermot. Published under his pseudonym Tom Redcam by the
All Jamaica Library
,
is a tragic story of race and class set in Jamaica. Understated and ironic, the novel critiques the social conditions of Jamaica under British colonialism. Through the character of Liberta Passley, a wealthy woman of mixed racial heritage, MacDermot sheds light on the disparities between the island's black and white communities, crafting a story now recognized as essential to modern Caribbean literature. "'I?' said Liberta Passley, 'am the most unhappy woman in Kingston.' She was not speaking aloud, but was silently building up with unspoken words a tabernacle for her thoughts. She considered now the very positive assertion in which she had housed this thought, went again through its very brief and enigmatic terms, and then deliberately added the further words: 'and in Jamaica.'" Despite her beauty, wealth, education, and social standing, Liberta Passley is unable to feel satisfied. Raised as the only surviving daughter of a wealthy Englishman and his formerly-enslaved wife, Liberta feels she must ignore her mother's side of the family as a means of rejecting her African roots. Manipulating her father, she arranges for her Aunt Henrietta, her mother's only surviving sister and their loyal housekeeper, to be fired and thrown out. Thinking she is making a decision for her own good, she unwittingly welcomes disaster into her life. This edition of Thomas MacDermot's
is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.
Since our inception in 2020,
Mint Editions
has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.
With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.