
. The house behind the cedars, which many consider Charles Chesnutt’s finest novel, tells of John and Lena Walden, mulatto siblings who pass for white in the postbellum American South. And chesnutt has become one of the most important ‘crossover’ authors from the African-American tradition. ”.
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM Unabridged: American Classic

In howells' maybe the most famous novel, the story follows the materialistic rise of Silas Lapham from rags to riches, The Rise of Silas Lapham, and his ensuing moral susceptibility. He was the first american author to bring a realist aesthetic to the literature of the United States. He loses his money but makes the right moral decision when his partner proposes the unethical selling of the mills to English settlers.
His stories of boston upper crust life set in the 1850s are highly regarded among scholars of American fiction. Silas earns a fortune in the paint business, but he lacks social standards, which he tries to attain through his daughter's marriage into the aristocratic Corey family. Silas' morality does not fail him.
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The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man Dover Thrift Editions

Revolutionary for its time, the Autobiography remains both an unrivaled example of black expression and a major contribution to American literature. A radical departure from earlier books by black authors, this pioneering work not only probes the psychological aspects of "passing for white" but also examines the American caste and class system.
But it was as a poet and novelist that he achieved lasting fame. First published in 1912, through an anonymous narrator, the novel relates, events in the life of an American of mixed ethnicity whose exceptional abilities and ambiguous appearance allow him unusual social mobility — from the rural South to the urban North and eventually to Europe.
One of the most prominent african-americans of his time, educator, social reformer, songwriter, James Weldon Johnson 1871–1938 was a successful lawyer, and critic.
Passing

Black No More

Matt dreams up a scam that allows him to become the leader of the White Knights of Nordica, and marry the caucasian gal who rejected him before his change.
Imperium in Imperio: A Study of the Negro Race Problem A Novel

Our Nig: or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black Penguin Classics

Pudd'nhead Wilson English Library

. The indulged tom now heir to a fortune rightfully that of Chambers goes to Yale, where he learns how to drink and gamble, while Chambers looks set to remain a subservient drudge. The two boys' lives in the quiet Missouri town of Dawson's Landing remain entwined even though they take very different directions.
Darkly ironic, blending farce and tragedy, Pudd'nhead Wilson is a complex and fascinating depiction of human nature under slavery.
Of One Blood: Or, the Hidden Self: The Givens Collection

Of one blood is the last of four novels written by Pauline Hopkins. Of one blood first appeared in serial form in colored american Magazine in the November and December 1902 and the January 1903 issues of the publication, during the four-year period that Hopkins served as its editor. Hopkins tells the story of reuel briggs, a medical student who couldn't care less about being black and appreciating African history, but finds himself in Ethiopia on an archeological trip.
His motive is to raid the country of lost treasures -- which he does find in the ancient land. Hopkins wrote the novel intending, in her own words, to "raise the stigma of degradation from the Black race. The title, of one blood, refers to the biological kinship of all human beings.
The Marrow of Tradition Illustrated

. Beautifully illustrated with atmospheric paintings by renowned artists, The Marrow of Tradition is a gripping historical novel by African-American writer Charles W. Chesnutt. Based on the race riots that took place in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1898, the novel is a fictional account of the rise of the white supremacist movement.
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