Finding Edith Eaton

Since her critical rediscovery in the early 1980s, the Montreal-raised Edith Maude Eaton (1865-1914), who wrote under the pen name Sui Sin Far, has been celebrated as the first Asian North American writer and as an early, authentic Eurasian voice countering "yellow peril" nativism through sympathetic literary representations of diasporic Chinese subjects. The author outlines Eaton's life and literary output, both in Montreal and the United States. The author and other scholars have unearthed nearly two hundred of Eaton’s works that are not included in her best-known text, Mrs. Spring Fragrance and Other Writings, and these works cover various topics in various styles across periodicals in Canada, the United States, and Jamaica from 1888 to 1914. The author overviews Eaton’s publication history and how archivists such as herself work with both electronic and print resources to trace and uncover works that have been lost. Finally, she notes how such works end up challenging our assumptions about these authors’ styles, politics, and experiences.

Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers

Vol. 29

no. 2

263-269

2012

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