Concentrating on carefully chosen selections from ten writers, Mary Helen Washington explores the work, the realities, and the hopes of black women writers between 1860 and 1960. Featuring works by Harriet Jacobs, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Pauline E. Hopkins, Fannie Barrier Williams, Marita O. Bonner, Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Ann Petry, Dorothy West, and Gwendolyn Brooks. Praise for Invented Lives "Mary Helen Washington has done more than any other single critic to expand the Afro-American and Anglo-American feminist canons."-The Women's Review of Books "This collection is, in fact, two fine books in one: at once an anthology and a critical study."-New York Times Book Review "The forceful, uncompromising, and distinctive voice of Mary Helen Washington brings together foremothers and daughters . . . in a volume that presents . . . a century of black women's writing along with a vital new tradition of black feminist criticism."-Marianne Hirsch, Ms. Magazine

AcknowledgmentsINTRODUCTION“The Darkened Eye Restored": Notes Toward a Literary History of Black WomenPART ONEINTRODUCTIONMeditations on History: The Slave Woman’s VoiceHARRIET JACOBS“The Perils of a Slave Woman’s Life” from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1860)Bibliographic NotesPART TWOINTRODUCTIONUplifting the Women and the Race: The Forerunners—Harper and HopkinsFRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER“Iola” from Iola Leroy (1892)Bibliographic NotesPAULINE E. HOPKINS“Sappho” from Contending Forces (1900)“Bro’r Abr’m Jimson’s Wedding: A Christmas Story” (1901)Bibliographic NotesFANNIE BARRIER WILLIAMS“The Colored Girl” (1905)PART THREEINTRODUCTIONThe Mulatta Trap: Nella Larsen’s Women of the 1920sMARITA O. BONNER“On Being Young—a Woman—and Colored” (1925)NELLA LARSEN“Helga Crane” from Quicksand (1928)Bibliographic NotesPART FOURINTRODUCTION“I Love the Way Janie Crawford Left Her Husbands”: Zora Neale Hurston’s Emergent Female HeroZORA NEALE HURSTON“His Over-the-Creek-Girl” from Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934)“Janie Crawford” from Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)Bibliographic NotesPART FIVEINTRODUCTION“Infidelity Becomes Her”: The Ambivalent Woman in the Fiction of Ann PetryANNE PETRY“Mamie” from The Narrows (1953)Bibliographic NotesINTRODUCTIONI Sign My Mother’s Name: Maternal Power in Dorothy West’s Novel, The Living Is EasyDOROTHY WEST“Cleo” from The Living Is Easy (1948)“My Mother, Rachel West” (1982)Bibliographic NotesPART SIXINTRODUCTION“Taming All That Anger Down”: Rage and Silence in the Writing of Gwendolyn BrooksGWENDOLYN BROOKS“The Courtship and Motherhood of Maud Martha” from Maud Martha (1953)“The Rise of Maud Martha” (1955)“Afterword” to Contending Forces (1968)Bibliographic NotesIndex