Born to a white mother and an absent black father, and despised for her dark skin, Helga Crane has long had to fend for herself. As a young woman, Helga teaches at an all-black school in the South, but even here she feels different. Moving to Harlem and eventually to Denmark, she attempts to carve o[...]

First published to acclaim in 1929, Passing tells the story of two black women who cross the color line. Irene Redfield has an enviable life with her husband and sons in a comfortable Harlem town house. But Irene's hold on this life begins to slip the day she encounters Clare Kendry, a lost childhoo[...]

Larsen's status as a Harlem Renaissance woman writer was rivaled by only Zora Neale Hurston s. This Norton Critical Edition of her electrifying 1929 novel includes Carla Kaplan s detailed and thought-provoking introduction, thorough explanatory annotations, and a Note on the Text. An unusually rich [...]

A writer of the Harlem Renaissance, Nella Larsen wrote just two novels, published here, and a handful of short stories. Critically acclaimed, both speak powerfully of the contradictions and restrictions experienced by black women at that time. Quicksand, written in 1928, is an autobiographical nove[...]