ABSTRACT

The earlier sections of the novel Memoirs of the Life and Travels of the Late Charles Macpherson provide the rudiments of a Scottish bildungsroman, which according to several sources, is an accurate autobiographical rendition of MacNeill’s early life. The hero, Charles Macpherson, is educated to pursue a colonial career. His father is sceptical of a classical education, having suffered reverses in his own life despite it, and instead strongly recommends ‘a particular attention to penmanship, figures, and accounts’ and ‘a thorough knowledge of geography'. The hero is invited by Antoinette’s mother, Mme Bellanger, to convalesce at her plantation in the mountains. Mme Bellanger tells the story of her initial travails coping with the institution of slavery and subsequent reform of it through intelligent benevolence. The Scot-baiting and tyrannical Penguin is exposed in the novel as a cowardly and jealous wife-beater.