Frances E.W. Harper

First published in 1892, Iola Leroy was probably the best-selling novel by an African-American writer prior to the twentieth century. Frances Harper had already gained an international reputation as a writer, lecturer, and political activist when Iola Leroy—her only novel—appeared, as evident by the sizable audience she enjoyed of men and women, black and white, in the U.S., Canada, and England. Her writings reveal her in-depth knowledge of African-American literature as well as of other literatures, and through this novel we can see the preferences and aesthetic assumptions of her nineteenth-century audience.

Frances E.W. Harper

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