Frances E W Harper

African-American Classics presents great stories and poems from America"s earliest Black writers, illustrated by contemporary African-American artists. Featured are "Two Americans" by Florence Lewis Bentley, "The Goophered Grapevine" by Charles W. Chesnutt, "Becky" by Jean Toomer, two short plays by Zora Neale Hurston, and six more tales of humor and tragedy. Also featured are eleven poems, including Langston Hughes" "Danse Africaine" and "The Negro", plus Paul Laurence Dunbar"s "Sympathy" ("I know why the caged bird sings...")

A landmark anthology of full-length works by Black American women writers of the 19th century including Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Harriet Jacobs, and Mary Weston Fordham-edited and with an introduction by C. S. R. Calloway. Shadows Uplifted collects and celebrates the vibrant and diverse work of these often unsung Black female writers, meticulously preserving their words while making them newly accessible to modern readers of all genders and backgrounds. Collected here for the first time in a single volume are: Frances E. W. Harper's 1892 novel Iola Leroy, an examination of multiracial identity within one family during and after the Civil War. Julia C. Collins's 1865 novel The Curse of Caste, written the very year the Civil War ended and chronicling the lives of a mother and her daughter during the antebellum age. A. E. Johnson's 1894 novel The Hazeley Family, telling the story of Flora Hazeley and the impact of her moral standings." Let us continue to uplift such shadows in our history, allowing them their corporeal bodies, flesh, blood, and melanated skin. Let us continue to uplift Black women: supporting and honoring their stories, their art, and their existence." - C. S. R. Calloway

Reproduction of the original: Iola Leroy by Frances E. W Harper

Reproduction of the original: Trial and Triumph by Frances E. W Harper

Reproduction of the original: Minnie's Sacrifice by Frances E. W Harper

Frances Harper's fourth novel follows the beautiful Iola Leroy to tell the story of black families in slavery,during the Civil War, and after Emancipation. Written by the foremost black woman activist of thenineteenth century, the novel sheds light on the movements for abolition, public education, and votingrights. This edition engages the latest research on Harper's life and work and offers way to teach these majormoments in United States history in ways that center the experiences of African Americans. Theappendices provide primary documents that help readers do what they are seldom encouraged to do:consider the experiences and perspectives of people who are not white.

Excerpt from Iola Leroy: Or Shadows Uplifted Everywhere help was needed, and her heart being deeply absorbed in the cause she willingly allowed her sympathies to impel her to perform most heroic services. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The daughter of a wealthy Mississippi planter, Iola Leroy led a life of comfort and privilege, never guessing at her mixed-race ancestry -- until her father died and a treacherous relative sold her into slavery. This stirring tale of life during the Civil War and Reconstruction traces a young woman's struggles and triumphs on the path to self-discovery. Confronted with the truth of her origins, Iola Leroy rejects the secrecy and shame inherent to a life of passing as white. Instead, she devotes herself to the improvement of black society in this compelling exploration of race, politics, and class. The New York Times noted that this 1892 work was "probably the bestselling novel by an African-American before the twentieth century." It bears the additional distinction of being among the first novels published by an African-American woman. Author Frances E. W. Harper, a popular lecturer and poet, was a leader in the suffrage and temperance movements and a founding member of the National Association of Colored Women. In Iola Leroy, she advocates female self-sufficiency and independence within the context of a gripping work of historical fiction.

The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers General Editor: HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR. The past two decades have seen a dramatic resurgence of interest in black women writers, as authors such as Toni Morrison and Alice Walker have come to dominate the larger African-American literary landscape. Yet the works of the writers who founded and nurtured the black women's literary tradition--nineteenth-century African-American women--have remained buried in research libraries or in expensive hard-to-find reprints, often inaccessible to twentieth-century readers. Oxford University Press, in collaboration with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a research unit of The New York Public Library, rescued the voice of an entire segment of the black tradition by offering thirty volumes of these compelling and rare works of fiction, poetry, autobiography, biography, essays, and journalism. Responding to the wide recognition this series has received, Oxford now presents four more of these volumes in paperback (to add to the four already available). Each book contains an introduction written by an expert in the field, as well as an overview by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the General Editor.