An Imperative Duty - Softcover

Howells, W. D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 159462335X ISBN 13: 9781594623356

Publisher: Book Jungle, 2006

Synopsis

Olney got back to Boston about the middle of July, and found himself in the social solitude which the summer makes more noticeable in that city than in any other. The business the hard work of life, was going on, galloping on, as it always does in America, but the pleasure of life, which he used to be part of as a younger man, was taking a rest, or if not a rest, then certainly an outing at the sea-shore. He met no one he knew, and he continued his foreign travels in his native place, after an absence so long that it made everything once so familiar bewilderingly strange.

About this title

Review

"Far from fussing over chipped china, the novella goes to the heart of the great American problem of race... This is a provocative subject, and the publisher has provided much useful material for help in understanding it: an introduction (by Paul R. Petrie), footnotes and a sheaf of appendices, including one that links 'An Imperative Duty' to a subgenre of 19th-century fiction: 'The Tragic Mulatta.' There is a big difference between other 'Tragic Mulatta' novels and this one, however: The other writers played the central situation for shock value, whereas Howells made it into art."--Dennis Drabelle "The Washington Post "

About the Author

W.D. Howells (1837-1920) was an American novelist and critic whose fiction and criticism were important to the literary realist movement. Paul R. Petrie is Professor of English at Southern Connecticut State University.

Edition details

• Publisher: Book Jungle
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 159462335X
• ISBN 13: 9781594623356
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 164