Secret History;: or The Horrors of St. Domingo and Laura Broadview Editions Horror Book Review

Based on Leonora Sansay’s eyewitness accounts of the final   days of French rule in Saint Domingue (Haiti), Secret History is a vivid   account of race warfare and domestic violence. Sansay’s writing   provocatively draws comparisons between Saint Domingue during the Haitian   Revolution and the postrevolutionary United States, while fluidly combining   qualities of the eighteenth-century epistolary novel, colonial travel   writing, and political analysis. Laura, Sansay’s second novel, features as   its protagonist a beautiful impoverished orphan who throws herself headlong   into a secret marriage with a young medical student. When her husband dies   in a duel in an effort to protect his wife’s reputation, Laura finds   herself once more alone in the world. The republication of these works will   contribute to a significant revision of thinking about early American   literary history.   

This Broadview edition offers a rich selection of contextual materials,  including selections from periodical literature about Haiti, engravings,  letters written by Sansay to her friend Aaron Burr, historical material   related to the Burr trial for treason, and excerpts from literature   referenced in the novels.