Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Frances E. W. Harper
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Standard Name: Harper, Frances E. W.
Birth Name: Frances Ellen Watkins
Married Name: Frances Ellen Harper
Pseudonym: Effie Afton
Nickname: The Brown Muse
An active lecturer and author in support of abolition, women's rights, and racial equality in the mid-nineteenth century, FEWH
was, according to Henry Louis Gates, Jr
, the first African-American professional woman of letters.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr et al. “Introduction”. Three Classic African-American Novels, Vintage Books, 1990, p. vii - xvii.
xii
She published eleven volumes of prose and poetry and a novel, and composed hundreds of speeches, letters, and essays which appeared in independent periodicals, and most of which remain uncollected. The full extent and significance of her oeuvre therefore awaits full assessment.
Graham, Maryemma, and Frances E. W. Harper. “Introduction”. Complete Poems of Frances E. W. Harper, Oxford University Press, 1988, p. xxxiii - lvii.
Mary Ann Shadd developed a friendly relationship with Frances E. W. Harper
, and a sometimes cordial, sometimes antagonistic, relationship with Frederick Douglass
and Martin Delany
on her lecture tours, through her work as editor...
Intertextuality and Influence
Harriet Jacobs
HJ
's work fed into an emergent tradition of black American writing. Frances E. W. Harper
's ground-breaking novel Iola Leroy; or, Shadows Uplifted was probably influenced by her (its central black characters, from North...
Textual Features
Mary Ann Shadd Cary
Samuel Ringgold Ward's Introductory editorial in the first issue of The Provincial Freeman, his sole contribution to the periodical, outlined its aims. He wrote that the paper would be devoted to the elevation of...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Rebecca Harding Davis
RHD
touches on public matters too. She keenly recalls the prejudice against Abolitionists in the period leading up to the Civil War, and records a glancing contact with John Brown
, and her impressions of...
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Harper, Frances E. W. Complete Poems of Frances E. W. Harper. Editor Graham, Maryemma, Oxford University Press, 1988.
Graham, Maryemma, and Frances E. W. Harper. “Introduction”. Complete Poems of Frances E. W. Harper, Oxford University Press, 1988, p. xxxiii - lvii.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr et al. “Introduction”. Three Classic African-American Novels, Vintage Books, 1990, p. vii - xvii.
Harper, Frances E. W. Iola Leroy. Garrigues, 1892.
Harper, Frances E. W. Moses: A Story of the Nile. Merrihew and Son, 1869.
Harper, Frances E. W. Poems. Merrihew and Son, 1871.
Harper, Frances E. W. Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects. J. B. Yerrinton and Son, 1854.
Harper, Frances E. W. “The Two Offers”. Anglo-African Magazine, No. 1, pp. 288 - 92, 311.