Contending Forces: A Romance Illustrative of Negro Life North and SouthOxford University Press, 1988 - 402 pages In Contending Forces (1900), her best-known novel and her only work of fiction published in book form during her lifetime, Pauline Hopkins uses the conventions of the sentimental romance as she seeks to encourage social change. In its pages we encounter noble heroes and virtuous heroines, exotic settings, unsavory villains, melodramatic scenes, and a star-crossed love affair. Both an extraordinarily detailed examination of black life in nineteenth-century America and a richly textured and engrossing piece of fiction, Contending Forces remains one of the most important works produced by an African-American before World War I. |
Contents
CHAPTER | 16 |
II | 32 |
III | 43 |
THE TRAGEDY | 65 |
MA SMITHS LODGINGHOUSE | 80 |
MA SMITHS LODGINGHOUSE | 97 |
VII | 114 |
THE SEWINGCIRCLE | 141 |
LOVE TOOK UP THE HARP OF LIFE | 166 |
AFTER MANY DAYS | 254 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
African Afro-American ain't Alice Dunbar-Nelson Alphonse Anson Pollock asked beautiful Bermuda Bill black women Boston bout brother Charles Montfort Charlotte Forten Grimké child church Colored American Contending Forces dear Doctor Lewis door Dora Dora's eyes face fair father feel felt Frances E. W. Harper friends gazed girl goin hand happy heard heart Henry Louis Gates honey Hopkins Hopkins's Iola Leroy Jesse John Langley knew laughed literary living look Madam Frances mind Miscegenation morning mother mulatto Negro never niggers night novel nuthin Pauline Pauline Hopkins paused Phelia Phillis Wheatley political race replied Sarah Ann Schomburg Schomburg Library seat seemed Sister slaves smile Smith South stood story tell thar thet things thought tion told tonight turned voice watch Will's Willis Withington woman young