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A landmark account of the African American experience during the Civil War and its aftermath

The daughter of a wealthy Mississippi planter, Iola Leroy led a life of comfort and privilege, never guessing at her mixed-race ancestry -- until her father died and a treacherous relative sold her into slavery. This stirring tale of life during the Civil War and Reconstruction... Read Full Overview

"Good mornin', Bob; how's butter dis mornin'?"

Frances Harper's fourth novel follows the life of the beautiful, light-skinned Iola Leroy to tell the story of black families in slavery, during the Civil War, and after Emancipation. Iola Leroyadopts and adapts three genres that commanded significant audiences in the nineteenth... Read Full Overview

Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted (1892) is a novel by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. One of the first novels published by an African American woman, Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted is a story of liberation set during the American Civil War that deals with such... Read Full Overview

The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers
General Editor: HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR.
The past two decades have seen a dramatic resurgence of interest in black women writers, as authors such as Toni Morrison and Alice Walker have come... Read Full Overview

Iola Leroy was originally published in 1892, during a time of black disenfranchisement, lynching, and Jim Crow laws. It is the story of a "refined mulatto" raised to believe she's white until she and her mother are sold into slavery. Iola becomes an outspoken advocate... Read Full Overview

Being very desirous that one of the race, so long distinguished in the cause of freedom for her intellectual worth as Mrs. Harper has had the honor of being, should not at this late date in life make a blunder which might detract from her own good name, I naturally proposed to... Read Full Overview

The most widely read and loved black heroine of 19th century fiction, the beautiful Iola Leroy is duped into slavery after the death of her father. Soon after she begins her long search for her mother who was separated from her on the slave trader's block. During her struggles... Read Full Overview

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely... Read Full Overview

"Iola Leroy or Shadows Uplifted" from Frances Harper. African-American abolitionist, poet and author (1825-1911).

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for... Read Full Overview