Federalism in Fidelity: Samuel Relf, the Early American Novel, and the Limits of Textual Representation

Abstract: This essay joins recent studies of Federalist politics and early American fiction by arguing that, in writing Infidelity; or, The Victims of Sentiment (1797), Samuel Relf engages with issues central to his work as a journalist and editor at the Federalist newspaper the Philadelphia Gazette. Infidelity 's epistolary structure affords Relf a means to tease out issues central to textual representation, some of which he solves with the use of a third-person narrator. A similar narratorial solution can be found in Relf's later editorials on Gabriel's Rebellion. In this way, this essay approaches the often-acknowledged but largely overlooked relationship that exists between early American novelists' fiction writing and their work as Federalist intellectuals.