Iola Leroy or Shadows Uplifted

2015 Reprint of 1892 Edition. This is one of the first novels published by an African-American woman. While following what has been termed the sentimental conventions of late nineteenth-century writing about women it also deals with serious social issues of education for women passing miscegenation abolition reconstruction temperance and social responsibility. Harpers novel remains important as one of the earliest novels written by an African American and as a fictional work dealing with complex issues of race class and politics in the United States. Recent scholarship suggests that Harpers novel provides a sophisticated understanding of citizenship gender and community particularly the way that African Americans developed hybrid forms of gemeinschaft and gesellschaft before during and after slavery.