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First published in 1930, "Not Without Laughter" is the debut novel by Langston Hughes and a deeply personal, semi-autobiographical tale of an African-American family in rural Kansas. Langston Hughes, born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri, spent much of his youth in Lawrence, Kansas and it is here that he set his first novel. "Not Without Laughter" tells the story of young Sandy Rogers as he grows from a boy to a young man and focuses on his "awakening...
2) Quicksand
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First published in 1928, "Quicksand" is the first novel by American author Nella Larsen. It is the semi-autobiographical tale of a young, mixed race woman who struggles to find her place in the world. Like her main character, Helga Crane, Larsen was the daughter of a Danish white mother and a West Indian black father who disappeared from her life as a baby. Larsen and the fictional Crane never feel that they belong in either the white world or the...
3) Oroonoko
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After learning how to fight at a young age, Oroonoko, an African prince, fights alongside his army against invading forces. When a celebrated general saves Oroonoko's life, trading his own to take an arrow for Oroonoko, the young prince feels indebted to the man and decides to go pay his respects to the late general's family. There, he meets Imoinda, the daughter of the general. Oroonoko and Imoinda quickly fall in love and become betrothed, but the...
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This rather simple plot is a most compelling drama that bristles with suspense as it contains all the elements of a classic 19th-century mystery including, reversed identities, a horrible crime, an eccentric detective, and a tense courtroom scene.
Set in the fictional frontier town of Dawson's Landing on the banks of the Mississippi River in the first half of the 19th century, the book turned from a farce to a tragedy in the course of Twain's writing...
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"I have never placed my opposition to slavery on a basis so narrow as my own enslavement, but rather upon the indestructible and unchangeable laws of human nature, every one of which is perpetually and flagrantly violated by the slave system." - Frederick Douglass Born and brought up in slavery, Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) experienced the horrors of bondage but gained freedom and world renown as a lecturer, editor, and one of the most important...
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Nella Larsen was an important writer associated with the Harlem Renaissance. While she was not prolific, her work was powerful and critically acclaimed. Collected here are both, of her novels, 'Passing' and 'Quicksand'. 'Quicksand', was autobiographical in nature and examined a woman's need for sexual fulfilment balanced against respectability and acceptance amid a deeply religious society. The novel is deeply pessimistic and ends as the protagonist...
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In reprinting these orations the editor has endeavored to present them here as nearly as possible in their original form. No effort has been made to improve the English. Published in this form, then, these orations will be of value not only to persons studying the development of the Negro in his use of a modern idiom but also in the study of the history of the race. It is in this spirit that these messages are again given to the public.
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In 1937, Alabama was racially divided. The legal system at this time, aided by the Ku Klux Klan, enforced strict segregation. The last unlawful lynching of a black man by the Klan occurred in rural Southeast Alabama. The young man sought protection from his employer, who sheltered him with the family in his home. After thirty-six hours of a continuous siege by the Klan, the accused was handed over to the county sheriff for trial.
This is the true...
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Early in his career, Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) wrote a series of plays revolving around characters obsessed with the sea. This period culminated in the 1922 production of Anna Christie, a Pulitzer Prize–winning drama of social realism that was among the first of the author's plays to explore characters searching for their own identities. Centering on the reunion of a barge captain and his daughter after a twenty-year separation, the play derives...
10) Adventure
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He was a very sick white man. He rode pick-a-back on a woolly-headed, black-skinned savage, the lobes of whose ears had been pierced and stretched until one had torn out, while the other carried a circular block of carved wood three inches in diameter. The torn ear had been pierced again, but this time not so ambitiously, for the hole accommodated no more than a short clay pipe. The man-horse was greasy and dirty, and naked save for an exceedingly...
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First Published in 1920, "Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil" is the first of three autobiographical works by W. E. B. Du Bois, the American sociologist, educator, author, historian, and civil rights activist. Presented as a collection of essays, poems, and spiritual songs, "Darkwater" is part personal memoir and part social commentary and criticism. Du Bois was deeply spiritual and relied heavily on his Christian beliefs throughout his life....
12) The Weary Blues
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"The Weary Blues" is the powerful and ground-breaking collection of poetry by American author Langston Hughes. An important contribution to the growing Harlem Renaissance art movement, "The Weary Blues" was Hughes' first poetry collection and was published in 1926 when the author was only 24, though some of the poems had appeared earlier in magazines. An immediate critical success, Hughes created a new form of poetry, called jazz or blues poetry,...
13) Clotel
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First published in December 1853, Clotel was written amid then unconfirmed rumors that Thomas Jefferson had fathered children with one of his slaves. The story begins with the auction of his mistress, here called Currer, and their two daughters, Clotel and Althesa. The Virginian who buys Clotel falls in love with her, gets her pregnant, seems to promise marriage-then sells her. Escaping from the slave dealer, Clotel returns to Virginia disguised as...
14) Cane
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A series of vignettes exploring African American life as it relates to social, political and family dynamics. For many, Cane is considered a literary masterpiece from visionary writer, Jean Toomer. He presents a diverse collection of tales with distinct and vibrant characters who populate a world that's all too familiar.
HEADLINE:
Jean Toomer delivers a vivid depiction of America in the early twentieth century that centers the Black experience,...
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Nella Larsen was an important writer associated with the Harlem Renaissance. While she was not prolific, her work was powerful and critically acclaimed. Collected here are both, of her novels, "Passing" and "Quicksand", as well as all three of her published short stories; "Freedom," "The Wrong Man", and "Sanctuary". "Quicksand" was autobiographical in nature and examined a woman's need for sexual fulfilment balanced against respectability and acceptance...
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"The Prototype: A Story of True Love" tells the story of Jadirah, a woman in search of the perfect love. Throughout her journey, Jadirah is striving to maintain her mental, physical, and spiritual health after public shame and loss. Due to the lack of support and compassion from her husband, she must face most challenges on her own. As she embarks on a journey toward the unconditional love that she deserves, she is faced with a choice that will radically...
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Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917) is a collection of poems by James Weldon Johnson. Although less popular than his book God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (1927), Johnson's second poetry collection showcases, his talents as a rising star of African American literature. Including some poems that would be, featured in The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922), an influential anthology compiled and edited by the poet himself, Fifty Years and...
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Although born with it, it seems as though it takes a lifetime to discover beauty within one's self. How does one even begin to define it? The simple appreciation of beauty is another feat in itself. It's always been there waiting to be unearthed. Flower In My Hair is like being born again...into beauty. Be Introduced or reacquainted with self love.
BLESSEDselling Author E. N. Joy gifts her readers with her most personal and private thoughts. In the...
19) The Tradition
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Jericho Brown's daring new book The Tradition details the normalization of evil and its history at the intersection of the past and the personal. Brown's poetic concerns are both broad and intimate, and at their very core a distillation of the incredibly human: What is safety? Who is this nation? Where does freedom truly lie? Brown makes mythical pastorals to question the terrors to which we've become accustomed, and to celebrate how we survive. Poems...
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"When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his 'proper place' and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary."
Overcoming extreme poverty, racism, and other adversities Carter Godwin...
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