The Confessions of Frannie Langton

The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins is a novel published in 2019. The novel follows the story of the eponymous Frannie Langton, a young Black woman on trial in early-19th-century London for the murders of the couple she worked for. The novel discusses slavery in the early-19th-century British Empire and the pervasive racism, classism, and sexism in contemporary London society. Sara Collins, who was a lawyer before becoming an author, uses the trial and its proceedings as a framework around which to base her heroine’s story.

This guide uses the Penguin Random House first US edition.

Content Warning: The source material for this guide discusses scientific racism and eugenics, slavery, violence against women and sex workers, child death, miscarriage, lynching, drug addiction, public execution, torture, and suicide. It also uses racist language in the context of the experience of enslaved people.

Plot Summary

The story begins in 1826 with the main character and narrator, Frannie Langton, imprisoned for allegedly murdering her employers. In her cell, she decides to write her story, addressed to her defense attorney, Mr. John Pettigrew. Her narrative begins in 1812 on a plantation named Paradise in Jamaica. Frannie is “owned” by a man named John Langton.