Iola Leroy; Or, Shadows Uplifted (Annotated)

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper's Iola Leroy; Or, Shadows Uplifted (1892) is a landmark Reconstruction novel that follows Iola, a mixed-race woman born into slavery, through war, emancipation, and the moral demands of citizenship. Combining sentimental fiction, abolitionist rhetoric, domestic realism, and political debate, Harper transforms the conventional romance plot into a meditation on race, gen...