Iola Leroy: Or Shadows Uplifted (Penquin Classics) - Softcover

Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014310604X ISBN 13: 9780143106043

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2010

First published in 1892, this stirring novel by the great writer and activist Frances Harper tells the story of the young daughter of a wealthy Mississippi planter who travels to the North to attend school, only to be sold into slavery in the South when it is discovered that she has Negro blood. After she is freed by the Union army, she works to reunify her family and embrace her heritage, committing herself to improving the conditions for blacks in America.

Through her fascinating characters-including Iola's brother, who fights at the front in a colored regiment-Harper weaves a vibrant and provocative chronicle of the Civil War and its consequences through African American eyes in this critical contribution to the nation's literature.

Review:

About the Author:

Frances Ellen Watkins HArper (1825-1911) was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to free parents. In addition to becoming an esteemed poet and essayist, she was a respected activist for women's rights and the abolitionist movement.

Hollis Robbins is a professor of humanities at the Peabody Institute of the John Hopkins University and affiliated faculty with the Center for Africana Studies.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the WEB Du Bois Institute for African and American Research at Harvard University. He is the author of numerous books, as well as a producer and writer of documentaries on African American history and culture. He lives in Massachusetts.

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 014310604X
• ISBN 13: 9780143106043
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240