Iola Leroy: Or Shadows Uplifted

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 Leroya€"her only novela€"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-Americanliterature as well as of other literatures, and through this novel we can see the preferences and aesthetic assumptions of her nineteenth-century audience.