It is sad to report that to this day, there are respected commentators prepared to discount the book as 'ghost written' and by implication unreliable. One wonders whether they have ever bothered to read it. Admittedly, by today's standards, the over-flamboyant title 'The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands' does not hold particular promise of serious historical content. However it must be remembered that it was published at the time when there was a rash of individual war memoirs flooding the market, and an effort was needed to make her book sound exciting enough to persuade the public to buy yet another. Mid-19th Century marketing techniques were much less sophisticated than today's, and what may appear artless to us now was quite the norm then.
To what extent her editor 'E.J.S' was involved in the finished article must of course be a matter of conjecture. We have no clue as to the level of Mary's literary skills, although she was accustomed to making speeches and presumably articulate. But there is nothing conventional about the style of writing or the construction framework. The narrative flows with conversational ease and there is a freshness of expression and quiet humour which uniquely fits the personality and events described. Somewhat anarchically, the book wanders from its chronological structure from time to time to follow a particular topic to its conclusion. In short the reader becomes convinced that Mary has written it herself. This must have been evident to those who knew her, as proved by the book's remarkable success. Against this background, and knowing her stubborn, forceful character, it is hard to believe that she allowed her autobiography to be 'ghost written' and my strong feeling is that she limited the role of the editor to just that - correcting layout grammer and spelling from the script she handed him.
 |
