Maidens in the Moorlands
By Tiffany Cruz
Tiffany Cruz, Mills College Mellon Community Collaborator and MA in English Literature Candidate, discusses her letterpress illuminated book project that puts 19th-century British novels with Black women protagonists in conversation with European artworks that center upper class Black women to showcase the ways in which raced and gendered Eurocentric conceptions of selfhood limit both lived and literary arcs for the Black woman, regardless of her financial status.
Jo Baker’s Birthday by Faith Ringgold highlights a reversal of roles by having the main subject of the painting be Josephine Baker, a Black woman, with a White maid who waits on her. In my book, Maidens in Moorlands: Black Women in 19th-Century British Literature, I also utilize this artistic choice of role reversal, highlighting Black women in European art, specifically in a style typically associated with White subjects. Like Ringgold, I was interested in capturing these women in a new way, and chose to pair them with two 19th-century British texts, to provide a literary analysis about these women in history.
During the pandemic I started to read again for fun and I fell in love with the work of Jane Austen and the overall aesthetic of the Regency era in England. But I wanted to center my work around People of Color. I combined my love of 19th-century literature with a specific focus on how People of Color moved through European society in history and in literature at that time.
I focus my analysis on two 19th-century British novels whose protagonists are upper class Black women with White fathers, who are navigating British society: the 1808 epistolary novel of manners, The Woman of Colour (Anonymous) and the 1897 fin-de-siecle Gothic sensation The Blood of the Vampire (Florence Marryat). Despite the gap in publication dates both works share themes and sentiments that I wanted to introduce to readers.
In deciding to create my own book, Maidens in the Moorlands, there were three things I knew I wanted to focus on. The first, was sticking to the medium of a book. The book form, as a way that information was circulated and shared, really captures the Regency era. The physical book itself was printed through Grimm Book Bindery in Madison, Wisconsin, who has been printing books since the 1800s and so were able to create Maidens in the Moorlands in the 19th-century style.
I also wanted to focus on historical manuscripts, specifically, their way of capturing images and texts simultaneously. However, because we don’t often see Black women depicted in these works, Maidens in the Moorlands not only depicts Black women, but also brings them into mediums they were excluded from. My book puts these two texts that center Black women in conversation with European artwork from the 16th- to 20th-centuries to show how we can center upper class Black women and bring into relief the ways in which race and gendered Eurocentric concepts of selfhood limited both their lived and literary arcs regardless of their financial status. It also demonstrates the impossibility of even a fictional happy ending for these Black women in a country whose empire is based on racial capital. I found many of the paintings I use in the book from the Instagram account Black Aristocrat Art and the Tumblr account People of Color in European Art History, both exclusively curate European artwork featuring People of Color.
Finally, the book celebrates the rich culture and presence of Black women in European history and literature by bringing these texts and images to life in a new way — as a Photoshop-designed digital manuscript, as well as a print edition. I wanted to push back against the idea that Black women don’t exist in this style of European art, that it was exclusively for White women. There are works out there that do represent Black women, but most people aren’t aware of them because they are not well circulated. For me, being able to find this artwork and showcase it alongside quotes and analysis was important — it humanizes these women and gives them a new life and context that they didn’t have.
In my book, I place quotes from each work alongside artwork that visually represents the tone or spirit of the written word. In more somber scenes, for example, I chose artwork depicting women with serious facial expressions as illustrated in the image below, which is paired with a quote that begins “I long to be free…” I also incorporate hidden elements into the pages as an ode to the characters’ backgrounds, such as plants native to the West Indies, to further personalize these women and their experiences.
Now, I’d like to give you a closer look into Maidens in the Moorlands by breaking down two pages from the book. You’ll notice that Maidens in the Moorlands has a narrative style that mirrors that of 19th-century literature instead of reading like a traditional essay or analysis. When I first read The Woman of Colour and The Blood of the Vampire I felt like there was so much more to be said, so choosing this format was my way of adding additional context to the quotes that they did not have at the time. In the images from my book, the quotes in red come directly from the source texts, with my narrative commentary in black below.
The Woman of Colour follows the life of Olivia, as chronicled through letters, whose late father’s will states that she must marry her cousin or be financially dependent on his elder brother.
Belittling thoughts, bowls filled with white rice, White tears, cooked with envy. Olivia consumes British colonization baked into the bread. She consistently keeps her people in her thoughts and dreams. These aggressive racial remarks fuels Olivia’s desire to push past all this noise. The sly remarks come off their tongues casually as they are filled with shock when Olivia stands up for herself. She does not let them get away with their cruel tongue. The subtlety of Olivia’s lyrical riposte, the tables continue to turn. The crumbs falling on the floor to be swept away like the remnants of Olivia’s past.
The quote in red in the above image is from an exchange that happens between Olivia and her aunt who has made it very clear that she does not like Olivia or that she is there. Her family is constantly making remarks about her race, telling her she’s different, that she doesn’t belong, and trying to mask it under the guise of politeness and hospitality. In this particular quote the aunt is asking if Olivia would like to eat something different, but not out of care or concern. It is a way to say “This is how we do things here.” Olivia has to defend herself and the people she cares about constantly. She asserts herself, telling her aunt and father’s family that they are unkind and makes her views clear. Her family isn’t used to such openness and never expected her to act in that way.
The Blood of the Vampire is a gothic text following the life of Harriet, who has left the convent that she has called home to travel around Europe with her immense fortune. Harriet is also an energy vampire — whoever gets too close to her for too long will die.
Harriet’s heart pulses with happiness for the first time. Love, she has found love. Her husband sees her, her intellect, her beauty, and just sees her which Harriet values over everything else. Her life was hidden behind walls that closed her off from herself. Her existence, confined, hidden, and deadly. The cruel world that stifled Black women and the way marriage could help bring her out of this. Now, her tragic ending burned deeper than flesh cut by a blade. The scenes playing in Harriet’s eyes presented the ideal world against the confines of society that would not let her have it. The White stained storybook with no room for black ink. An ending already written from the first page.
Harriet ultimately marries a White man, who is also a socialist, and while he’s not the best, she decides he is the best option, and she’s happy. Unfortunately, because she is an energy vampire, she ends up draining him of his life and he passes away. That really puts things into perspective for her because while she had been warned about this possibility, she only now sees what her existence does to other people. No longer seeing her life as valuable, she commits suicide.
It makes me wonder if the draining of White people’s energy can be a larger commentary on the way that Black people have been drained of their own energy and life through colonization. Whether or not the text itself was written with that in mind, it is interesting to think about in this work because the people who are around her are White and those are the people who end up being killed. This is yet another example of Black women who have wealth, privilege, and so much more, but ultimately cannot escape the confines of a racist British society.
As a fiction writer myself, I felt that these books were missing the happy endings these protagonists deserve. How these women speak, feel, and are forced to constantly demonstrate their worth, really resonated with me as a woman of color myself. Their experiences are ones that a lot of women still face today, which just highlights the relevance of this work even now.
I would like to end with a part of the acknowledgements that’s in the back of my book. “I want to take a moment to thank all the amazing Black women I learned about throughout this project. Being able to explore more about their lives, ideas, and challenges truly made this book what it is. These women have been an integral part of Western civilization and their contributions are overlooked. Fiction stems from real life experiences and I could only fit a small amount of all this amazing literature and artwork in my book. But there is still so much out there waiting for someone to find it.”
I encourage you to go out there and discover some new things for yourself.
Read Tiffany Cruz’s Maidens in Moorlands: Black Women in 19th-Century British Literature, here.
On April 22, 2022, Tiffany Cruz presented her work, Maidens in Moorlands: Black Women in 19th-Century British Literature, to an audience at Mills College. In her lecture, she shared the inspiration behind her project, explained the aesthetic and material choices she made in creating the physical book, and presented and analyzed examples from the book itself. Tiffany’s lecture was followed by a Q&A with input from the in-person and live stream audience. Watch the event recording, here.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tiffany Cruz was born in New York City but has been living in the Bay Area for the past few years. She attends Mills College getting her masters in English Literature. She focuses on 19th-century British literature through the voices of Black, Indigenous, People of Color. Tiffany believes in amplifying the voices of those in the past and bringing them to life in the present. She also runs a Bookstagram with over eight hundred followers, where she writes book reviews and shares recommendations. In her free time she enjoys visiting museums, trying new vegan food, and writing fiction. Tiffany is of Afro-Taíno descent and is a member of the United Confederation of Taíno People.
Instagram: @tiffanyfranchescakaraya / Bookstagram: @tiffanykarayareads
