However, we cannot be satisfied with that definition, which in the final analysis is somewhat formal and static, and does not go to the heart of what the narrative says, represents or symbolizes. A second possible approach, then, is to read the notices as narratives in the sense that they are not documents, but texts, and look at all runaway notices from an intertextual perspective, as making  
up one vast Text. By this we mean that the notices presuppose making a set of language choices that make them a form of 'fiction of factual representation' (White, 1978, pp. 121-34). The expression is Hayden White's, and was originally applied to the relationship of narrative similarity between a novel and a historical analysis. The point made here is a different one, but White's expression seems especially appropriate to the hypothesis I wish to develop. The fugitive slave notice is at the same time, taking the polysemy of the word 'fiction', both factual illusion and creation. ${ }^{4}$ This does not mean that the notices are not aggregations of true facts, indeed thousands of them, but as Charles Davis and Henry Louis Gates remind us, 'No written text is a transparent rendering of historical reality, be that text composed by master or slave' (Davis and Gates, 1985, p. xi). The context of that quotation is the definition of an autobiographical account by a slave in the United States; it seems equally relevant when speaking of notices, texts under the control of slave-owners.  
Narrative, story, narration, text and 'fiction of factual representation', creation: essentially, we propose to read fugitive slave notices as a report (written) to the world. Of course it is not certain that the creators of the notices had this idea in mind when writing, and reading, fugitive slave notices. However, maybe that is exactly what accounts for their popularity.