Folklorists and literary historians have long regarded Under the Man-Fig as one of the premier examples of early Texas literature. James Lee cited it in 1987 as one of the classics of Texas fiction. The novel, however, has not been available to general reading audiences for over a century. One of the rarest of Texana collectors' items, occasional original copies of Under the Man-Fig are usually snatched up by university and library special collections before they can reach the open buyer's market.

This facsimile reprint by TCU Press has been made possible by the generosity of John B. Meadows of Austin, a descendant of the author of the novel, Mollie E. Moore Davis. The 1895 original from which this reprint was produced has passed from family member to family member through four generations and was originally inscribed on the flyleaf by Davis herself, "To Thomas O. Moore, With love, From his sister The Author, New Orleans, 1895." Throughout the twentieth century, this copy has been read and re-read countless times; it shows the ravages of those readings in various tears, pencil-scribbles, and other markings. The dust jacket, if it ever had one, disappeared long ago, but the light green cloth binding has stood up remarkably well, even if it is a bit threadbare in places. This family heirloom has been loved almost to pieces.

Mollie E. Moore Davis was nationally the best-known Texas woman writer of the nineteenth century. Born in Alabama in 1844, she moved with her family to Texas in 1855, settling first around present-day San Marcos and thence, by the outbreak of the Civil War, to Tyler. With each successive move, the family became increasingly destitute, descending into what was referred to at the time as "genteel poverty." As a teenager, the precocious and headstrong Mary Evalina Moore changed her name to Mollie Evelyn; after she married, she usually was known professionally as M. E. M. Davis. Young Mollie's active support of the Confederate cause expressed in her patriotic poetry, published in the Tyler newspaper, caught the attention of the prominent publisher E. H. Cushing, editor of the influential Houston Telegraph. He and his wife invited Mollie to spend a few months with them in Houston, which had many more cultural opportunities than Tyler. In 1867, Cushing published Mollie's first book, a collection of her poetry entitled Minding the Gap and Other Poems.

In 1874, Mollie married newspaperman Thomas E. Davis and moved to New Orleans, where he later became editor of the New Orleans Picayune. The couple lived there for the rest of their lives, although Mollie made frequent trips back to her brother's Texas ranch near Comanche. Her second novel, The Wire-Cutters (1899), is set in and around Comanche and is regarded as the first American western novel, predating both The Virginian (1902) and Log of a Cowboy (1903). The Davis house in the French Quarter of New Orleans became a fashionable literary salon presided over by Mollie, who, like Katherine Anne Porter decades later, encouraged the false notion that she herself was of southern aristocratic plantation background. One of her early books, a sentimental collection of seemingly personal sketches of southern life entitled In War Times at La Rose Blanche(1888), enhanced the subterfuge of Davis' plantation background.

Under the Man-Fig, set in and around the plantations of the fictional lower Brazos town of Thornham, Texas, (based on Columbia), was published some twenty or so years after Davis left Texas and could have been set just as easily in Louisiana. But Davis never forgot or downplayed her Texas heritage. Texas was the setting of The Wire-Cutters and many of her most notable short stories, including "An Elephant's Track." She also published the non-fiction book, Under Six Flags: The Story of Texas.

The literary tastes of contemporary readers are somewhat different from those of a century ago, despite the enormous readership of formula romances published today by Harlequin Press and others. Under the Man-Fig has the requisite happy ending of a genre romance, bringing closure to a contrived plot centered on false accusations of jewel theft by a scorned lover, lightened with elements of classical farce. A pair of Dickensian sisters, Madame "dee Jollyboys" (de Jolibois) and her piano-thumping, old-maid sister provide comic relief.

Under the Man-Fig is a sentimental romance of "life in a time and place that no longer exist outside the covers of the book," if, in fact, life was ever the way it is depicted in this book. The novel, however, provides insight more into the turn of the century attitude toward the Civil War than it does to the reality of the war. Davis uses terminology that sounds harsh to today's ears, terms such as "nigger," nicknaming a character "Fatty," and referring to the slaves as "grotesque." By the time Davis was writing in the 1890s, the stereotype of the antebellum "good darky" represented the idealized past as southerners wanted to remember it. Liberty and Betty, the loyal slaves who disparage "free niggers" for their shiftlessness and who beg to be sold to pay off the family debt, existed more in the minds of white southerners than in reality.

The primary interest of Under the Man-Fig for contemporary readers as well as literary historians lies in Davis' effective use of folklore themes and motifs to provide the local color which contextualizes the narrative. The legend of the man-fig, a tree whose fruit is colored by the blood of a murdered Spaniard, as well as the legend of the naming of Los Brazos de Dios, are more than quaint curiosities; these legends reflect and document the folk wisdom of earlier generations, much of which would have been forgotten if it had not been captured in early works of fiction. Furthermore, the "Man-Fig Council" of gossipy old men functions much like a Greek chorus as they comment on unfolding events. These same gossip-mongers are also responsible for the rumor of the theft of the dying Elinor's jewels. Likewise, Davis' mention of "LaSalle Point," (page 143) where LaSalle apparently crossed the Brazos, captures a local place name otherwise lost to us today.

The episode in Chapter 9 of the novel ("The Palm-Tree Girl") where the characters attend an Emancipation Celebration (Davis does not call it "Juneteenth") is one of the earliest descriptions in literature of this distinctive holiday. In this chapter, Davis may be drawing on her personal experience of attending such emancipation celebrations. Davis was obviously intrigued by the image of the ex-slave, African-born prince presiding as the "Centre Figger" over the festivities. She used the same image in a short story published in Harper's Magazine in January, 1890, and also told of Aunt Rose, an African "princess," in In War Times at La Rose Blanche (Chapter XI, "Our African Princess"). In practically all of her fiction, Davis excels in her rendition of Southern dialect, both of her Negro and her "po'white" characters.

Contemporary readers must be careful not to judge the content and technique of antique novels by today's standards. In spite of what we recognize as the patronizing and demeaning depiction of the Negro characters, as well as its intricately contrived romantic plot, Under the Man-Fig is nevertheless the best example of Texas romantic fiction at the turn of the century. It is fitting for this 19th century novel to be republished at the dawn of the 21st century.