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 for her people and a critic of race-mixing. Her story offers an important portrait of black life during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

A striking portrait of black life during the Civil War and Reconstruction, this 1892 work was among the first novels published by an African-American woman. It explores issues of race, politics, and class in the tale of a mixed-race woman who rejects a life of "passing" and devotes herself to the improvement of black society.

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.

One of the most significant contributions to early Black literature, "Iola Leroy" is one of the best-selling novels by an African-American before the 20th century. With its intricate plot, about a mulatto who first assumes she is white, subsequently learns she is the daughter of a slave and is therefore black, and who ultimately makes the conscious choice not to pass for white but to live as a black woman, "Iola Leroy" is a novel filled with the complexities and contradictions of black-and-female existence in America in the nineteenth century. The author of "Iola Leroy," Frances E. W. Harper, was a persuasive and sensitive writer, a popular and articulate speaker, and friend of some of the best-known political activists, religious leaders, educators, and artists of her day. "Iola Leroy" tackles an array of issues affecting the black race, and America in general, during the late 19th century. These issues range from gender, to internalized racism among the Negro of lighter skin color, the infamous "Negro question," the hypocrisy of religion, and many others. The opening chapters in "Iola Leroy" about the slaves under slavery, the slaves during the civil war, their actual role in stopping the confederacy, the intelligence of the slaves, and all are not just idle depictions, but responses to those who felt slaves were incapable of revolution. Harper's analysis of the strength and struggle of the freedmen and freedwomen after slavery tends to also reply to the debate about whether they were worthy of freedom, and whether the fall of reconstruction was inevitable. Harper was optimistic about the future and potential of African-Americans, maintaining that the doors of education, religious freedom, and of economy and capitalism were open to the race. The most undeniable value of the book, is the call that the author makes for literacy, temperance, and the uplifting of the race.

Four autobiographical narratives written by African-American women from 1853 to 1902.