First published to critical acclaim in 1929, Passing firmly established Nella Larsen's prominence among women writers of the Harlem Renaissance. The Modern Library is proud to present Passing — an electrifying story of two women who cross the color line in 1920s New York—together with a new Introduction by the Obie Award- winning playwright and novelist Ntozake Shange.\nIrene Redfield, the novel's protagonist, is a woman with an enviable life. She and her husband, Brian, a prominent physician, share a comfortable Harlem town house with their sons. Her work arranging charity balls that gather Harlem's elite creates a sense of purpose and respectability for Irene. But her hold on this world begins to slip the day she encounters Clare Kendry, a childhood friend with whom she had lost touch. Clare—light-skinned, beautiful, and charming—tells Irene how, after her father's death, she left behind the black neighborhood of her adolescence and began passing for white, hiding her true identity from everyone, including her racist husband. As Clare begins inserting herself into Irene's life, Irene is thrown into a panic, terrified of the consequences of Clare's dangerous behavior. And when Clare witnesses the vibrancy and energy of the community she left behind, her burning desire to come back threatens to shatter her careful deception.\nBrilliantly plotted and elegantly written, Passing offers a gripping psychological portrait of emotional extremity.

Passing

Nella Larsen

PRENTICE/HALL

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, these collectible editions are bound in colourful, tactile cloth and stamped with foil. Clare Kendry, elegant, fair-skinned and ambitious, is married to a white man who is unaware of her African-American heritage. When she reunites with childhood friend Irene, who has not hidden her origins, both women are forced to confront the secret fears they have buried within themselves. A taut exploration of race and gender, Passing is one of the Harlem Renaissance's greatest works. 'A tragic story rooted in inescapable facts of American life' The New York Times

Passing (Little Clothbound Classics)

Literature & Fiction

United States

Penguin Classics

'The overlooked American writer who blows apart modern thinking on race' Telegraph\nBorn 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 out a comfortable life and place for herself, but ends up back where she started, choosing emotional freedom that quickly translates into a narrow existence.\nNella Larsen's powerful first novel, has intriguing autobiographical parallels and at the same time invokes the international dimension of African American culture of the 1920s. Slow, moving and reflective, Quicksand is a detailed and evocative portrayal of a biracial woman's inner life.

Quicksand (The Penguin English Library)

"This is the book we've been waiting for: a distinguished collection that demonstrates how revisions of Modernist definitions might proceed.... The Gender of Modernism... will be nothing less than an absolutely necessary text for Modernist studies." —Shari Benstock
"Scott and her contributing editors... effectively [bring] together the issues of gender and modernism into a volume recommended for reference and classroom use." —James Joyce Literary Supplement
"... a treasure trove for anyone interested in the literature and history of modern times." —Susan Gubar
Authors included are: Djuna Barnes, Willa Cather, Nancy Cunard, H.D., T.S. Eliot, Jessie Redmond Fauset, Zora Neale Hurston, James Joyce, Nella Larsen, D.H. Lawrence, Mina Loy, Rose Macaulay, Hugh MacDiarmid, Katherine Mansfield, Charlotte Mew, Marianne Moore, Ezra Pound, Jean Rhys, Dorothy Richardson, May Sinclair, Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Rebecca West, Antonia White, Anna Wickham, and Virginia Woolf.

The Gender of Modernism: A Critical Anthology

Willa, Cather

Nancy Cunard

Charlotte Mew

Mina Loy

D.H.Lawrence

James, Joyce

T.S.Eliot

British & Irish

Indiana University Press

Random House Publishing Group

The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen Passing, Quicksand, and The Stories

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Gathers three stories and two novels by Larsen, an influential writer of the Harlem Renaissance, and briefly describes her background

An Intimation of Things Distant: The Collected Fiction of Nella Larsen

Anchor

Penguin

Two novels of 1920s Harlem describe Helga Crane's search for freedom and personal expression, and Irene's friendship with Clare, who attempts to pass for white

Quicksand and Passing (American Women Writers Series)

Rutgers Univ Pr

"Quicksand and Passing are novels I will never forget. They open up a whole world of experience and struggle that seemed to me, when I first read them years ago, absolutely absorbing, fascinating, and indispensable."--Alice Walker "Discovering Nella Larsen is like finding lost money with no name on it. One can enjoy it with delight and share it without guilt." --Maya Angelou
"A hugely influential and insightful writer." --The New York Times
"Larsen's heroines are complex, restless, figures, whose hungers and frustrations will haunt every sensitive reader. Quicksand and Passing are slender novels with huge themes." -- Sarah Waters
"A tantalizing mix of moral fable and sensuous colorful narrative, exploring female sexuality and racial solidarity."-Women's Studies International Forum
Rutgers' all-time bestselling book, Nella Larsen's novels Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929) document the historical realities of Harlem in the 1920s and shed a bright light on the social world of the black bourgeoisie. The novels' greatest appeal and achievement, however, is not sociological, but psychological. As noted in the editor's comprehensive introduction, Larsen takes the theme of psychic dualism, so popular in Harlem Renaissance fiction, to a higher and more complex level, displaying a sophisticated understanding and penetrating analysis of black female psychology.

Quicksand and Passing (American Women Writers)

Rutgers University Press

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Books by Nella Larsen