Minnie's Sacrifice
- ISBN-10
- 1513276735
- ISBN-13
- 9781513276731
- Series
- Minnie's Sacrifice
- Category
- Fiction
- Pages
- 86
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2021-01-26
- Publisher
- Graphic Arts Books
- Author
- Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Description
Minnie’s Sacrifice (1869) is a novel by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. Originally serialized in the Christian Recorder, Minnie’s Sacrifice is a rediscovered work of fiction from one of nineteenth century America’s most prominent black writers and activists. The novel, which addresses such themes as miscegenation, passing, and the institutionalized rape of enslaved women, is a vastly underappreciated work that repurposes the story of Moses to tell a tale with a powerful political message. On a plantation in the American South, a slave named Miriam mourns the untimely death of her only daughter. Agnes, who succumbed while giving birth to a baby boy in their cabin at the edge of Mr. Le Croix’s property, left her son in her mother’s care. Visiting Miriam’s cabin later that day, Camilla, the master’s daughter, discovers a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy. Bringing this to the attention of her father, Camilla proposes that the boy be sent away from the plantation to be brought up as white. Unable to accept that the boy should be considered a slave, Camilla begs her father to take the child north, all the while failing to connect her own father to the boy’s birth. After brief contemplation, he nervously consents to her plan, but for all her cunning and bravery, Camilla is entirely unprepared for what her merciful endeavor will reveal. Minnie’s Sacrifice, by an author who inspired Zora Neale Hurston and Ida B. Wells, is a groundbreaking work of African American fiction and a definitive masterpiece from Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a pioneer in her craft. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s Minnie’s Sacrifice is a classic of African American literature reimagined for modern readers.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
Minnie's Sacrifice, Sowing and Reaping, Trial and Triumph: Three Rediscovered Novels
By Frances HarperOriginally serialized in issues of The Christian Recorder between 1868 and 1888, these works address issues of passing, social responsibility, courtship, sexuality, and temperance, and are the first to have been written specifically for an ...
-
Minnie's Sacrifice
By Frances Ellen Watkins HarperMinnie's Sacrifice
-
Minnie's Sacrifice
By Francis HarperMany African American women's service clubs named themselves in her honor, and across the nation, in cities such as St. Louis, St. Paul, and Pittsburgh, F. E. W. Harper Leagues and Frances E. Harper Women's Christian Temperance Unions ...
-
Discarded Legacy: Politics and Poetics in the Life of Frances E.W. Harper, 1825-1911
By Melba Joyce BoydEven more so , there is a strong kinship between Minnie's Sacrifice and Iola Leroy . Minnie's Sacrifice is clearly a precursor of Iola Leroy . In many ways the two works complement each other . Minnie's Sacrifice focuses on the ...
-
Barriers between Us: Interracial Sex in Nineteenth-Century American Literature
By Cassandra Jackson3 Reconstructing America in Lydia Maria Child's A Romance of the Republic and Frances E. W. Harper's Minnie's Sacrifice The quest to build a new nation during the Reconstruction era encouraged interest in a character that engaged the ...
-
The Novels of Frances Harper
By Frances Ellen Watkins HarperThe Novels of Frances Harper (2021) collects four works of fiction by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a pioneering figure in African American literature.
-
African American Literature in Transition, 1865–1880: Volume 5, 1865–1880: Black Reconstructions
By Eric Gardner48 For a sampling of criticism on Minnie's Sacrifice, see Foster, Introduction to Minnie's Sacrifice, xi–xxxvii; Stancliff, 78–80; and Farah Jasmine Griffin, “Minnie's Sacrifice: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper's Narrative of Citizenship” ...
-
Novel Bondage: Slavery, Marriage, and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century America
By Tess ChakkalakalMinnies Sacrifice, 91. 38. That is not to say, however, that there is nothing to be gained from considering Harper's fiction in the context of other works, both fiction and nonfiction, that appeared in the Christian Recorder.
-
African American Authors, 1745-1945: Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook
By Emmanuel Sampath NelsonIn the novella Minnie's Sacrifice ( 1869 ) , Harper takes on the theme of racial identity with the characters Minnie and Louis . Both characters are biracial ; both to be white ; both are raised white . Not until they reach young ...
-
Defining Moments: African American Commemoration and Political Culture in the South, 1863-1913
By Kathleen Ann ClarkSee Foster, ed., Minnie's Sacrifice. The following citations are drawn from this republished edition. There are parallels between Minnie's Sacrifice and Harper's later novel, Iola Leroy. See Carby, Reconstructing Womanhood, ch. 4. 55.