An African-American woman searches for a fulfilling relationship through two loveless marriages and finally finds it in the person of Tea Cake, an itinerant laborer and gambler.

Jude the Obscure, the semi-autobiographical final novel from Thomas Hardy explores notions of surprising candor; within the eponymous protagonist lies the tragic truth of failed ambitions and relationships. In a fierce exploration of the darkness of love and the intellect, this is one of the great tragic novels of English literature. Jude Fawley, an earnest boy from a rural English village, dreams of a life of academia despite his working-class background....

Henry Townsend, an African farmer and former slave, is befriended by the most powerful man in antebellum Virginia's Manchester County, and becomes proprietor of his own plantation and of his own slaves.

Sara and Susan share tea, cookies, crab cakes, and stories about hats when they visit their favorite relative, Aunt Flossie.

"Up from Slavery <.i> is the 1901 autobiography of American educator Booker T. Washington (1856-1915). Born in a Virginia slave hut, Washington rose from a slave child during the Civil War to worldwide recognition for his many accomplishments, becoming the most influential spokesman for African Americans of his day. In this eloquently written book, Washington describes his impoverished childhood and youth as a child in bondage, and the difficulties...

In the sequel to the enormously successful Casting the First Stone , Kimberla Lawson Roby brings back a character readers love to hate. Curtis Black might be a man of the cloth, but with his irresistible looks, seductive charm, and charismatic personality, he's particularly beloved by his female parishioners--and almost every other woman he's ever met. The trouble is, Curtis is married. At first he tries to resist temptation, but not for long. His...

When the dead body of a young woman is found on the grounds of Belle Vie, the estate's manager, Caren Gray, launches her own investigation into Belle Vie's history, which leads her to a centuries old mystery involving the plantation's slave quarters--and her own past.

Originally published in 1954, Richard Wright's Black Power is an extraordinary nonfiction work by one of America's premier literary giants of the twentieth century. An impassioned chronicle of the author's trip to Africa's Gold Coast before it became the free nation of Ghana, it speaks eloquently of empowerment and possibility, and resonates loudly to this day. Also included in this omnibus edition are two nonfiction works Wright produced around the...

At the request of her readers, Kimberla Lawson Roby is giving another airing to one of her most popular characters, Curtis Black, who was introduced in Casting the First Stone and who continued his escapades in Too Much of a Good Thing. Kimberla Lawson Roby's readers can't get enough of the Reverend Curtis Black, that self—justifying, greedy, womanizing flimflam man who is one of the biggest rascals ever to step into a church. In this outing, Curtis...

Restless Classics presents the ninetieth anniversary edition of an undersung gem of the Harlem Renaissance: Nella Larsen's Passing, a captivating and prescient exploration of identity, sexuality, self-invention, class, and race set amidst the pealing boisterousness of the Jazz Age. When childhood friends Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry cross paths at a whites-only restaurant, it's been decades since they last met. Married to a bigoted white man who...