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libidomechanica · 1 year ago

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“Slay the verge there are the Prince Adam fell: mething”

May chanc’d to ducks at every bole, and to climb and other mind at first, and t was never grows colder, grows dull even aside, whose sweet babes and business of the former heart. As in the soul process, mighty Máhmúd on his gift, upon my grief a rich personage of her image in our joys. With its second ran away along the day. Death their

alert enemy Fraunce; her and gave also would composed the brush’d foes. And there; that love, of the honey of the British cabin, found the transformed got, curst inquiring the lion’ then become may, my testament as you tralineate from scissors, painter Garment was not practised her surely; am I not where to Marmora wither’d freed

from the fair. Each us being seemed a double valets, willy-nilly flowing anvil banged with ill-usage, when the snow tires, you aught it to greet the Sultan, and far be it strange and crack with, lotting on his own Phaëton. ’ Said Baba, to be made him as any mercer, or whether harsh truths you will make the last, a charm that no hear me like

Ida: some word of Night had come with paras jumbling it, then, with each day after Rage deprest, as if she still smaller. Will take all in which field, thy dial’s shade, in her Collar; but in boils. So he case; and the soul—the deem no worse that had might eyes, I all amiss that she came as comely; therefore than light rise and mistake, break her: strong the presence of

my back the change of pallid and worth: the grief as sung and fearful means daiquiri. Brought us think it mine! Can change of the surgeons made a paul; and die, and then let a tale grew hard: with cypress or cupboard, was large a middling kisses smoother Prophetic eye of his own crowned the levee morn thine, than when windows and a while scars of things the strict

Testing of course untrimm’d; but I can stand angels would you to you. And land: the grim, meridian-born, but have a man’s court? That does this cheek they went down; and then a strange vicissitudes in new Bloom, till put it all, that floated in the world and rhyme. No bad examples; pity as he rode down to Canterbury! And the leaned her had stringent

qualified the fifty, till an iceberg it may moderately used for three sins in everything about, belov’d friend storm, they sneer at thy preserve, that He who could make your advice, as we should be conversation the hung up with grief is what this horse had found her price; some one day could them it seems but a mind. Rise and eating schoolboy’s whine, tis not meet

these acts of life shall beyond. Old familiar guest. A noon-dew, wander if you wandering light teaches, at duty’s rose, and Come’ he wholesome, in horse loud temper’d with the treated it, I do with a glorious heart reeled but copy near relations, perforce, woman in Cashmire had threatening from above that slink from what t was as might flash’d always

your proffer young did she bought a little but to my ample lotted, and topples rose mind at least all in which through Berlin, Dresden, and nought up for daily shepherd straits in his hand. There warm whence to our own people prefer, stay near the wind my Spectre of Perfume: it seems but Heaven, that he should not force with that tender eyes of our life, your place,

when shone of him by consequence, but in wonder my sake of that columned entry swain returne with tears, or when we hither, what a check’d her! And merely for the window shade, whose name there he story of sweet dew place, by measured mind is satire on the bride, could prize, both move his blood, till the Giant is weapon, and we dead? And this, when the day

to end us, a broke foaming of electron waits the best; yourself wildly any air. Who flatter his praised her treasure wood, ’ that more thought for charity, are over: yeah, I know no other flash’d the fire should fain outrun her. Of moving slaves, none way down, by his story, let him but showed, thy youth; we did—was the Fountain his e’e, kens they died, we

see what she chaste and early melts, a shill the warring gainst mind is satire on tiptoe through her trust can mend; all else but Loues self, what end at first wife. Would press’d. Slay the verge there are the Prince Adam fell: mething bride: but, as the sole men seem a nest of her backs on leave you as she. The fire: better at they know. And also here he read with long year

self, once the island in one and Shah beheld which they love and bitter fighting a head, and sucklings; then thou could let the preserve thy mindful of my head and there it came then anxious mind. Who ne’er Misfortune led merry-make; and sapping and worshipp’d—they with the true blood. Some have borne; now raving this youth of steep required to guide them to live for your

ingress turn to country, till my mournful lily as a lighted; and Helvoetsluys, there in monasteries of silent on his rude hand. Yet in the East, to sail in the gloom, till I return: still the East thou thy smoke some slight as it out, and passed for the play, and sing, this shining Foal of Heav’n Parwín and the sea, and sweet you are deuoutly and best belov’d

repose? Rain. Parted plainer to read what to have call, and I Don Juan posterity. From which I have to secure of Saturn sate, late show not fair, in bloom, till hanker; as the crone in stormy east-wind keenly blew, with all they should drown through a clouds bent the fairy, the Turks do wounds might that sin in me is; it suffred you; this a miracle.

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 6 #154 texts #ballad

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dweemeister · 4 years ago

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The complete list of films featured in 2021′s “31 Days of Oscar” marathon

What follows is the exhaustive list of all 403 short- and feature-length films featured on this blog over the last thirty-one days for the 31 Days of Oscar marathon. This number is up from last year’s count of 327 and is the second-highest number of films I have ever featured in this marathon (behind the 410 films from 2016). Despite the number, this remains only a fraction of the nearly 5,000 films that have been nominated for Academy Awards. This year’s marathon was harder to plan than usual due to the fact it was presented in alphabetical order - with the exception of any write-ups I did.

BREAKDOWN BY DECADE 1927-1929: 7 1930s: 44 1940s: 63 1950s: 63 1960s: 46 1970s: 25 1980s: 29 1990s: 28 2000s: 25 2010s: 43 2020s: 30

Year with most representation (2020 excluded): 1940 (ten films) Median year: 1964

And now, the list. Best Picture winners and the one (and only) winner for Unique and Artistic Production are in bold. Asterisked (*) films are films I haven’t seen in their entirety as of the publishing of this post.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Ace in the Hole (1951)

Adam’s Rib (1949)*

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

After the Thin Man (1936)*

Airport (1970)*

Aladdin (1992)

Albert Nobbs (2011)

Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1938)

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

Almost Famous (2000)

An American in Paris (1951)

Anastasia (1956)

Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

Annie (1982)

Around the World in Eighty Days (1956)

Arrival (2016)

Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987, France)

The Awful Truth (1937)

Babe (1995)

Baby Doll (1956)*

Ballad of a Soldier (1959, Soviet Union)*

The Band Wagon (1953)

Bao (2018 short)

Ben-Hur (1959)

Berkeley Square (1933)

The Best Man (1964)

Better Days (2019, Hong Kong)*

The Big Chill (1983)*

The Birds (1963)

Birds Anonymous (1957 short)

Black Orpheus (1959, Brazil)

BlacKkKlansman (2018)

Blue Velvet (1986)

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)*

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2020)*

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

Brief Encounter (1945)

Brotherhood (2018 short, Tunisia/Canada/Qatar/Sweden)

Cabin in the Sky (1943)

Calamity Jane (1953)

Carol (2015)*

Casablanca (1942)

Casino (1995)*

Charade (1963)

The Circus (1928)

Citizen Kane (1941)

City of God (2002, Brazil)*

Claudine (1974)*

Closely Watched Trains (1966, Czechoslovakia)

Coraline (2009)*

Da 5 Bloods (2020)*

Dances with Wolves (1990)

Death in Venice (1971)*

Destination Moon (1950)*

The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941)

Down Argentine Way (1940)

Dunkirk (2017)

Easter Parade (1948)

The Edge of Democracy (2019, Brazil)*

Educated Fish (1937 short)*

El Cid (1961)*

Elmer Gantry (1960)

The End of the Affair (1999)*

Ernest & Celestine (2012, France/Belgium)

Face to Face (1976, Sweden)*

The Fallen Idol (1948)

Fantasia (1940)

A Fantastic Woman (2017, Chile)*

Far from the Madding Crowd (1967)*

A Farewell to Arms (1932)*

A Few Good Men (1992)*

Five Easy Pieces (1970)*

The Five Pennies (1959)

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. (1953)

Flower Drum Song (1961)

Flowers and Trees (1932 short)

Flying Down to Rio (1933)*

For All Mankind (1989)

For Sama (2019)*

Forbidden Planet (1956)

Forrest Gump (1994)

42nd Street (1933)

Four Days in November (1964)*

The Four Feathers (1939)

The 400 Blows (1959, France)

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)*

From Here to Eternity (1953)

Funny Face (1957)

Funny Girl (1968)

Fury (1936)*

Gandhi (1982)

The Garden of Allah (1936)

Garden Party (2017 short, France)

Gaslight (1944)

Giant (1956)

Gigi (1958)

Gladiator (2000)

The Godfather (1972)

The Godfather, Part II (1974)

Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)

Gorillas in the Mist (1988)*

Gosford Park (2001)

Grand Hotel (1932)

Grand Prix (1966)*

The Great Beauty (2013, Italy)

The Great Race (1965)

The Great Ziegfeld (1936)

Green Book (2018)

Green Dolphin Street (1947)*

The Green Mile (1999)*

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)

Gunga Din (1939)

Hair Love (2019 short)

Hallelujah (1929)*

Hamlet (1948)

Hamlet (1990)

Hamlet (1996)

Hangmen Also Die! (1943)*

The Happiest Millionaire (1967)

A Hard Day’s Night (1964)

Harlan County U.S.A. (1976)

The Harvey Girls (1946)

Heartbreak Ridge (1986)*

The Heiress (1949)

Hell’s Angels (1930)*

Henry V (1989)

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

Hero (2002, China)*

Hidden Figures (2016)

The High and the Mighty (1954)*

High Noon (1952)

High Society (1956)

Himalaya (1999, France/Switzerland/United Kingdom/Nepal)*

Home Alone (1990)

Honeysuckle Rose (1980)*

Hoosiers (1986)

The House on 92nd Street (1945)*

How the West Was Won (1962)

How to Survive a Plague (2012)*

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)

I Married a Witch (1942)*

I Never Sang for My Father (1970)

I Vitelloni (1953, Italy)*

I Wanted Wings (1941)*

I, Tonya (2017)*

Ida (2013, Poland)

Imitation of Life (1959)

In Cold Blood (1967)

In the Absence (2018 short, South Korea)

In the Heat of the Night (1967)

Inherit the Wind (1960)

Inside Daisy Clover (1965)*

Inside Moves (1980)*

It Happened One Night (1934)

It Happened Tomorrow (1944)*

It Should Happen to You (1954)*

It’s Always Fair Weather (1955)

Jackie Brown (1997)*

Jammin’ the Blues (1944 short)*

Jaws (1975)

The Jazz Singer (1927)

Jerry’s Cousin (1951 short)

Jesus Camp (2006)*

Jezebel (1938)

Jim: The James Foley Story (2016)*

Joe’s Violin (2016 short)

The Journey of Natty Gann (1985)

Joyeux Noel (2005, France)

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)

Julia (1977)*

Juliet of the Spirits (1965, Italy)

Kagemusha (1980, Japan)

The Karate Kid (1984)

The Killers (1946)*

The King and I (1956)

The King’s Speech (2010)

The Kite Runner (2007)

Knights of the Round Table (1953)*

Knives Out (2019)

Kundun (1997)*

La Ronde (1950, France)*

La Strada (1954, Italy)

La Traviata (1982, Italy)*

Lady Be Good (1941)*

The Lady Eve (1941)

The Ladykillers (1955)*

The Last Emperor (1987)

A Letter to Three Wives (1949)

The Life Ahead (2020, Italy)*

Life is Beautiful (1997, Italy)

Life with Feathers (1945 short)

Lili (1953)

Lilies of the Field (1963)

The Lion in Winter (1968)*

Little Caesar (1931)

A Little Romance (1979)

Little Women (2019)

Logan (2017)

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

Lost Horizon (1937)

Love Affair (1939)*

Love Story (1970)*

Loving Vincent (2017)

The Magic Flute (1975, Sweden)

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

Malcolm X (1992)

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

A Man for All Seasons (1966)

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Maria Full of Grace (2004, Colombia)*

Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956)*

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

Mighty Joe Young (1949)*

Milk (2008)

Million Dollar Mermaid (1952)*

The Miracle Worker (1962)*

Mon Oncle (1958, France)

Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (1953, France)*

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

My Fair Lady (1964)

My Favorite Wife (1940)

My Favorite Year (1982)

My Night at Maud’s (1969)*

The Narrow Margin (1952)

The Natural (1984)

Nebraska (2013)

Network (1976)

Night Must Fall (1937)*

Nightcrawler (2014)*

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Ninotchka (1939)

Nowhere in Africa (2001, Germany)*

Odd Man Out (1947)*

The Official Story (1985, Argentina)*

Oklahoma! (1955)*

Oliver! (1968)

On Golden Pond (1981)*

On the Riviera (1951)*

On the Waterfront (1954)

One Day in September (1999)*

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

One Foot in Heaven (1941)

One Hour with You (1932)

One Potato, Two Potato (1964)*

Only Angels Have Wings (1939)*

Our Town (1940)

Paisan (1946, Italy)

Pal Joey (1957)*

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006, Mexico)

Paper Moon (1973)*

Parasite (2019, South Korea)

The Parent Trap (1961)

A Passage to India (1984)*

Patton (1970)

Pelle the Conqueror (1987, Denmark)*

Period. End of Sentence. (2018 short)

Persepolis (2007, France)

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)

Pigs in a Polka (1943 short)*

Pillow Talk (1959)*

Pinocchio (1940)

Places in the Heart (1984)*

Poltergeist (1982)

Portrait of Jennie (1948)

Precious (2009)*

The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)

The Private Life of Helen of Troy (1927)*

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939)*

The Producers (1967)

Psycho (1960)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Purple Rain (1984)

Puss Gets the Boot (1940 short)

Pygmalion (1938)

Quiet Please! (1945 short)

Quo Vadis, Aida? (2020, Bosnia-Herzegovina)*

Rachel, Rachel (1968)*

Ran (1985, Japan)

Random Harvest (1942)

Rashômon (1950, Japan)

Rasputin and the Empress (1932)*

Rear Window (1954)

Rebecca (1940)

Red River (1948)

The Red Shoes (1948)

A River Runs Through It (1992)

Road to Perdition (2002)

Roma (2018, Mexico)

Saludos Amigos (1942)

Same Time, Next Year (1978)*

The Secret of Kells (2009)

Sense and Sensibility (1995)*

Sergeant York (1941)

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)

Seven Samurai (1954, Japan)

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

The Shape of Water (2017)

Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015)*

She Done Him Wrong (1933)*

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)

The Shootist (1976)

The Shop on Main Street (1965, Czechoslovakia)

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Silverado (1985)

Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

Sleeping Beauty (1959)

The Smiling Lieutenant (1931)

The Snake Pit (1948)*

Song of the Sea (2014)

Sounder (1972)

The Sound of Music (1965)

The Spanish Main (1945)*

Speedy (1928)

Speedy Gonzales (1955 short)

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

Spirited Away (2001, Japan)

Stagecoach (1939)

A Star is Born (1937)

A Star is Born (1954)

A Star is Born (1976)*

A Star is Born (2018)

Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

Star Wars (1977)

Starship Troopers (1997)

The Sting (1973)

A Stolen Life (1946)*

The Story of Three Loves (1953)*

The Story of the Weeping Camel (2003, Mongolia)*

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)*

The Stranger (1946)*

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Strike Up the Band (1940)

Strings (1991 short)*

The Sundowners (1960)*

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

Superman (1978)

Sweet Bird of Youth (1962)

Swing Time (1936)

T-Men (1947)*

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013, Japan)

Tangerines (2013, Estonia)*

Tenet (2020)

Them! (1954)

Theodora Goes Wild (1936)*

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)*

This is Cinerama (1952)*

The Three Musketeers (1948)

Three Orphan Kittens (1935 short)

Time (2020)*

Timecode (2016 short, Spain)

Tom Jones (1963)

Toni Erdmann (2016, Germany)*

Top Hat (1935)

The Triplets of Belleville (2003, France)*

The Truman Show (1998)*

12 Angry Men (1957)

Twilight of Honor (1963)*

Two Girls and a Sailor (1944)*

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Umberto D. (1952, Italy)

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964, France)

Unforgiven (1992)

Up (2009)

Vertigo (1958)

Victor/Victoria (1982)

WALL-E (2008)

Watch on the Rhine (1943)*

Waterloo Bridge (1940)

Weary River (1929)*

West Side Story (1961)

Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968 short)

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Wolfwalkers (2020)

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

You Can’t Take It with You (1938)

Zorba the Greek (1964)*

The 15 nominated short films for the 93rd Academy Awards

The 8 nominees for Best Picture at the 93rd Academy Awards, including the winner, Nomadland

Until next year’s ceremony, folks - February will be here before we know it!

#Oscars #31 Days of Oscar

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oadara · 5 years ago

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I sometimes hear people complain that classic literature is the realm of dead white men. And it’s certainly true that men have tended to dominate the canon of literature taught in schools. But women have been writing great books for centuries. In fact, you could probably spend a lifetime just reading great classics by women and never run out of reading material.

This list is just a sampling of great books written by women of the past. For the purposes of this list, I’ve defined classics as books that are more than 50 years old. The list of classics by women focuses on novels, but there are some plays, poems, and works of nonfiction as well. And I’ve tried to include some well-known favorites, as well as more obscure books. Whatever your reading preferences, you’re bound to find something to enjoy here. So step back in time and listen to the voices of women who came before us.

The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon (990s-1000s). “Moving elegantly across a wide range of themes including nature, society, and her own flirtations, Sei Shōnagon provides a witty and intimate window on a woman’s life at court in classical Japan.”

The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu (Before 1021). “Genji, the Shining Prince, is the son of an emperor. He is a passionate character whose tempestuous nature, family circumstances, love affairs, alliances, and shifting political fortunes form the core of this magnificent epic.”

Oroonoko by Aphra Behn (1688). “When Prince Oroonoko’s passion for the virtuous Imoinda arouses the jealousy of his grandfather, the lovers are cast into slavery and transported from Africa to the colony of Surinam.”

Phillis Wheatley, Complete Writings by Phillis Wheatley (1760s-1770s). “This volume collects both Wheatley’s letters and her poetry: hymns, elegies, translations, philosophical poems, tales, and epyllions.”

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft (1790). “Arguably the earliest written work of feminist philosophy, Wollstonecraft produced a female manifesto in the time of the American and French Revolutions.”

The Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe (1791). “A beautiful, orphaned heiress, a dashing hero, a dissolute, aristocratic villain, and a ruined abbey deep in a great forest are combined by the author in a tale of suspense where danger lurks behind every secret trap-door.”

Camilla by Fanny Burney (1796). “Camilla deals with the matrimonial concerns of a group of young people … The path of true love, however, is strewn with intrigue, contretemps and misunderstanding.”

Belinda by Maria Edgeworth (1801). “Contending with the perils and the varied cast of characters of the marriage market, Belinda strides resolutely toward independence. … Edgeworth tackles issues of gender and race in a manner at once comic and thought-provoking. ”

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818). “Driven by ambition and an insatiable thirst for scientific knowledge, Victor Frankenstein … fashions what he believes to be the ideal man from a grotesque collection of spare parts, breathing life into it through a series of ghastly experiments.”

Persuasion by Jane Austen (1818). “Eight years ago, Anne Elliot fell in love with poor but ambitious naval officer Captain Frederick Wentworth … now, on the verge of spinsterhood, Anne re-encounters Frederick Wentworth as he courts her spirited young neighbour, Louisa Musgrove.”

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847). “Having grown up an orphan in the home of her cruel aunt and at a harsh charity school, Jane Eyre becomes an independent and spirited survivor …. But when she finds love with her sardonic employer, Rochester, the discovery of his terrible secret forces her to make a choice. “

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847). “One of the great novels of the nineteenth century, Emily Brontë’s haunting tale of passion and greed remains unsurpassed in its depiction of destructive love.”

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (1848). “A powerful and sometimes violent novel of expectation, love, oppression, sin, religion and betrayal. It portrays the disintegration of the marriage of Helen Huntingdon … and her dissolute, alcoholic husband.”

The Bondwoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts (mid-19th century). “Tells the story of Hannah Crafts, a young slave working on a wealthy North Carolina plantation, who runs away in a bid for freedom up North.”

Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1850). “Recognized for their Victorian tradition and discipline, these are some of the most passionate and memorable love poems in the English language.”

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852). “Selling more than 300,000 copies the first year it was published, Stowe’s powerful abolitionist novel fueled the fire of the human rights debate.”

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (1854). “As relevant now as when it was first published, Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South skillfully weaves a compelling love story into a clash between the pursuit of profit and humanitarian ideals.”

Our Nig by Harriet E. Wilson (1859). “In the story of Frado, a spirited black girl who is abused and overworked as the indentured servant to a New England family, Harriet E. Wilson tells a heartbreaking story about the resilience of the human spirit.”

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot (1860). “Strong-willed, compassionate, and intensely loyal, Maggie seeks personal happiness and inner peace but risks rejection and ostracism in her close-knit community.”

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs (1861). “The remarkable odyssey of Harriet Jacobs (1813–1897) whose dauntless spirit and faith carried her from a life of servitude and degradation in North Carolina to liberty and reunion with her children in the North.”

The Curse of Caste, or The Slave Bride by Julia C. Collins (1865). “Focuses on the lives of a beautiful mixed-race mother and daughter whose opportunities for fulfillment through love and marriage are threatened by slavery and caste prejudice.”

Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley (1868). “Traces Elizabeth Keckley’s life from her enslavement in Virginia and North Carolina to her time as seamstress to Mary Todd Lincoln in the White House during Abraham Lincoln’s administration.”

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868). “The four March sisters couldn’t be more different. But with their father away at war, and their mother working to support the family, they have to rely on one another.”

A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella Lucy Bird (1879). “In 1873, wearing Hawaiian riding dress, [Bird] rode her horse through the American Wild West, a terrain only newly opened to pioneer settlement.”

The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson (1890). “Though generally overlooked during her lifetime, Emily Dickinson’s poetry has achieved acclaim due to her experiments in prosody, her tragic vision and the range of her emotional and intellectual explorations.”

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892). “The story depicts the effect of under-stimulation on the narrator’s mental health and her descent into psychosis. With nothing to stimulate her, she becomes obsessed by the pattern and color of the wallpaper.”

Iola Leroy by Frances E.W. Harper (1892). “The daughter of a wealthy Mississippi planter, Iola Leroy led a life of comfort and privilege, never guessing at her mixed-race ancestry — until her father died and a treacherous relative sold her into slavery.”

The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals by Dorothy Wordsworth (1897). “Dorothy Wordsworth’s journals are a unique record of her life with her brother William, at the time when he was at the height of his poetic powers.”

The Awakening by Kate Chopin (1899). “Chopin’s daring portrayal of a woman trapped in a stifling marriage, who seeks and finds passionate physical love outside the straitened confines of her domestic situation.”

The Light of Truth: Writings of an Anti-Lynching Crusader by Ida B. Wells (late 19th century). “This volume covers the entire scope of Wells’s remarkable career, collecting her early writings, articles exposing the horrors of lynching, essays from her travels abroad, and her later journalism.”

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1902). “Transformed from princess to pauper, [Sarah Crewe] must swap dancing lessons and luxury for hard work and a room in the attic.”

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy (1905). “The French Revolution, driven to excess by its own triumph, has turned into a reign of terror. … Thus the stage is set for one of the most enthralling novels of historical adventure ever written.”

A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter (1909). “The story is one of Elnora’s struggles to overcome her poverty; to win the love of her mother, who blames Elnora for her husband’s death; and to find a romantic love of her own.”

Mrs Spring Fragrance: A Collection of Chinese-American Short Stories by Sui Sin Far (1910s). “In these deceptively simple fables of family life, Sui Sin Far offers revealing views of life in Seattle and San Francisco at the turn of the twentieth century.”

American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings by Zitkala-Sa (1910). “Tapping her troubled personal history, Zitkala-Sa created stories that illuminate the tragedy and complexity of the American Indian experience.”

The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton (1913). Undine Spragg’s “rise to the top of New York’s high society from the nouveau riche provides a provocative commentary on the upwardly mobile and the aspirations that eventually cause their ruin.”

Oh Pioneers by Willa Cather (1913). “Evoking the harsh grandeur of the prairie, this landmark of American fiction unfurls a saga of love, greed, murder, failed dreams, and hard-won triumph.”

Suffragette: My Own Story by Emmeline Pankhurst (1914). “With insight and great wit, Emmeline’s autobiography chronicles the beginnings of her interest in feminism through to her militant and controversial fight for women’s right to vote.”

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim (1922). Four women who “are alike only in their dissatisfaction with their everyday lives … find each other—and the castle of their dreams—through a classified ad in a London newspaper one rainy February afternoon.”

The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1924). “Evangeline Knapp is the perfect, compulsive housekeeper, while her husband, Lester, is a poet and a dreamer. Suddenly, through a nearly fata accident, their roles are reversed.”

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925). “Direct and vivid in her account of Clarissa Dalloway’s preparations for a party, Virginia Woolf explores the hidden springs of thought and action in one day of a woman’s life.”

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (1928). “First published in 1928, this timeless portrayal of lesbian love is now a classic. The thinly disguised story of Hall’s own life, it was banned outright upon publication and almost ruined her literary career.”

Plum Bun by Jessie Redmon Fauset (1928). “Written in 1929 at the height of the Harlem Renaissance by one of the movement’s most important and prolific authors, Plum Bun is the story of Angela Murray, a young black girl who discovers she can pass for white.”

Passing by Nella Larsen (1929). “Clare Kendry leads a dangerous life. Fair, elegant, and ambitious, she is married to a white man unaware of her African American heritage, and has severed all ties to her past.”

Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum (1929). “A grand hotel in the center of 1920s Berlin serves as a microcosm of the modern world in Vicki Baum’s celebrated novel, a Weimar-era best seller that retains all its verve and luster today.”

Thus Were Their Faces: Selected Stories by Silvina Ocampo (1930s-1970s). “Tales of doubles and impostors, angels and demons, a marble statue of a winged horse that speaks, a beautiful seer who writes the autobiography of her own death, a lapdog who records the dreams of an old woman, a suicidal romance, and much else that is incredible, mad, sublime, and delicious.”

Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers (1930). “Sayers introduces Harriet Vane, a mystery writer who is accused of poisoning her fiancé and must now join forces with Lord Peter Wimsey to escape a murder conviction and the hangman’s noose.”

All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West (1931). “When Lady Slane was young, she nurtured a secret, burning ambition: to become an artist. She became, instead, the dutiful wife of a great statesman, and mother to six children. In her widowhood she finally defies her family.”

Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann (1932). Olivia Curtis “anticipates her first dance, the greatest yet most terrifying event of her restricted social life, with tremulous uncertainty and excitement.”

Frost in May by Antonia White (1933). “Nanda Gray, the daughter of a Catholic convert, is nine when she is sent to the Convent of Five Wounds. Quick-witted, resilient, and eager to please, she adapts to this cloistered world, learning rigid conformity and subjection to authority.”

Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson (1934). “Times are harsh, and Barbara’s bank account has seen better days. Maybe she could sell a novel … if she knew any stories. Stumped for ideas, Barbara draws inspiration from her fellow residents of Silverstream.”

The Wine of Solitude by Irene Nemirovsky (1935). “Beginning in a fictionalized Kiev, The Wine of Solitude follows the Karol family through the Great War and the Russian Revolution, as the young Hélène grows from a dreamy, unhappy child into a strongwilled young woman.”

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1936). “Gone With the Wind explores the depth of human passions with an intensity as bold as its setting in the red hills of Georgia. A superb piece of storytelling, it vividly depicts the drama of the Civil War and Reconstruction.”

After Midnight by Irmgard Keun (1937). “German author Irmgard Keun had only recently fled Nazi Germany with her lover Joseph Roth when she wrote this slim, exquisite, and devastating book. It captures the unbearable tension, contradictions, and hysteria of pre-war Germany like no other novel.”

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1937). “One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston.”

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson (1938). “Miss Pettigrew is a governess sent by an employment agency to the wrong address, where she encounters a glamorous night-club singer, Miss LaFosse.”

The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen (1938). “The orphaned Portia is stranded in the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother’s home in London. There she encounters the attractive, carefree cad Eddie.

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (1939). “Ten strangers are lured to an isolated island mansion off the Devon coast by a mysterious U. N. Owen … By the end of the night one of the guests is dead.”

Mariana by Monica Dickens (1940). “We see Mary at school in Kensington and on holiday in Somerset; her attempt at drama school; her year in Paris learning dressmaking and getting engaged to the wrong man; her time as a secretary and companion; and her romance with Sam.”

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (1940). “Wonderfully attuned to the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition, and with a deft sense for racial tensions in the South, McCullers spins a haunting, unforgettable story that gives voice to the rejected, the forgotten, and the mistreated.”

The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead (1940). “Sam and Henny Pollit have too many children, too little money, and too much loathing for each other. As Sam uses the children’s adoration to feed his own voracious ego, Henny watches in bleak despair.”

The Bird in the Tree by Elizabeth Goudge (1940). “The Bird in the Tree takes place in England in 1938, and follows a close-knit family whose tranquil existence is suddenly threatened by a forbidden love.”

Anne Frank: A Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (1942-1944). “Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last years of her life, Anne Frank’s remarkable diary has since become a world classic—a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit.”

The Robber Bridegroom by Eudora Welty (1942). “Legendary figures of Mississippi’s past—flatboatman Mike Fink and the dreaded Harp brothers—mingle with characters from Eudora Welty’s own imagination in an exuberant fantasy set along the Natchez Trace.”

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (1943). “The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years.”

Nada by Carmen LeFloret (1944). “One of the most important literary works of post-Civil War Spain, Nada is the semi-autobiographical story of an orphaned young woman who leaves her small town to attend university in war-ravaged Barcelona.

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford (1945). “The Pursuit of Love follows the travails of Linda, the most beautiful and wayward Radlett daughter, who falls first for a stuffy Tory politician, then an ardent Communist, and finally a French duke named Fabrice.”

One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes (1947). “This subtle, finely wrought novel presents a memorable portrait of the aftermath of war, its effect upon a marriage, and the gradual but significant change in the nature of English middle-class life.”

Family Roundabout by Richmal Crompton (1948). “We see that families can both entrap and sustain; that parents and children must respect each other; and that happiness necessitates jumping or being pushed off the family roundabout.”

The Living Is Easy by Dorothy West (1948). “Cleo Judson—daughter of southern sharecroppers and wife of ‘Black Banana King’ Bart Judson … seeks to recreate her original family by urging her sisters and their children to live with her, while rearing her daughter to be a member of Boston’s black elite.”

Half a Lifelong Romance by Eileen Chang (1948). “Shen Shijun, a young engineer, has fallen in love with his colleague, the beautiful Gu Manzhen. … But dark circumstances—a lustful brother-in-law, a treacherous sister, a family secret—force the two young lovers apart. “

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (1948). “Tells the story of seventeen-year-old Cassandra and her family, who live in not-so-genteel poverty in a ramshackle old English castle. Here she strives, over six turbulent months, to hone her writing skills.”

Pinjar: The Skeleton and Other Stories by Amrita Pritam (1950). “Two of the most moving novels by one of India’s greatest women writers. The Skeleton …is memorable for its lyrical style and depth in her writing. … The Man is a compelling account of a young man born under strange circumstances and abandoned at the altar of God.”

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier (1951). “While in Italy, Ambrose fell in love with Rachel, a beautiful English and Italian woman. But the final, brief letters Ambrose wrote hint that his love had turned to paranoia and fear. Now Rachel has arrived at Philip’s newly inherited estate.”

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey (1951). “Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, recuperating from a broken leg, becomes fascinated with a contemporary portrait of Richard III that bears no resemblance to the Wicked Uncle of history.”

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (1952). “As Mildred gets embroiled in the lives of her new neighbors … the novel presents a series of snapshots of human life as actually, and pluckily, lived in a vanishing world of manners and repressed desires.”

Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks (1953). “In a novel that captures the essence of Black life, Brooks recognizes the beauty and strength that lies within each of us.”

Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple (1953). “Ellen was that unfashionable creature, a happy housewife struck by disaster when the husband, in a moment of weak, mid-life vanity, runs off with a French girl.”

Nisei Daughter by Monica Sone (1953). “With charm, humor, and deep understanding, Monica Sone tells what it was like to grow up Japanese American on Seattle’s waterfront in the 1930s and to be subjected to ‘relocation’ during World War II.”

Cotillion by Georgette Heyer (1953). “Country-bred, spirited Kitty Charings is on the brink of inheriting a fortune from her eccentric guardian – provided that she marries one of his grand nephews.”

Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya (1954). “This beautiful and eloquent story tells of a simple peasant woman in a primitive village in India whose whole life is a gallant and persistent battle to care for those she loves.”

The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (1955). “Since his debut in 1955, Tom Ripley has evolved into the ultimate bad boy sociopath. Here, in this first Ripley novel, we are introduced to suave Tom Ripley, a young striver, newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan.”

A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O��Connor (1955). “These stories show O’Connor’s unique, grotesque view of life— infused with religious symbolism, haunted by apocalyptic possibility, sustained by the tragic comedy of human behavior, confronted by the necessity of salvation.”

Collected Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1956). “Millay remains among the most celebrated poets of the early twentieth century for her uniquely lyrical explorations of love, individuality, and artistic expression.”

The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West (1957). “An unvarnished but affectionate picture of an extraordinary family, in which a remarkable stylist and powerful intelligence surveys the elusive boundaries of childhood and adulthood, freedom and dependency, the ordinary and the occult.”

Angel by Elizabeth Taylor (1957). “In Angel’s imagination, she is the mistress of the house, a realm of lavish opulence, of evening gowns and peacocks. Then she begins to write popular novels, and this fantasy becomes her life.”

The King Must Die by Mary Renault (1958). “In this ambitious, ingenious narrative, celebrated historical novelist Mary Renault takes legendary hero Theseus and spins his myth into a fast-paced and exciting story.”

A Raisin the the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (1959). “Set on Chicago’s South Side, the plot [of this play] revolves around the divergent dreams and conflicts within three generations of the Younger family.”

The Vet’s Daughter by Barbara Comyns (1959). “Harrowing and haunting, like an unexpected cross between Flannery O’Connor and Stephen King, The Vet’s Daughter is a story of outraged innocence that culminates in a scene of appalling triumph.”

The Colossus and Other Poems by Sylvia Plath (1960). “Graceful in their craftsmanship, wonderfully original in their imagery, and presenting layer after layer of meaning, the forty poems in The Colossus are early artifacts of genius that still possess the power to move, delight, and shock.”

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960). “The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published.”

The Householder by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1960). “This witty and perceptive novel is about Prem, a young teacher in New Delhi who has just become a householder and is finding his responsibilities perplexing.”

The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart (1961). “This remarkably atmospheric novel is one of bestselling-author Mary Stewart’s richest, most tantalizing, and most surprising efforts, proving her a rare master of the genre.”

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (1961). Miss Jean Brodie “is passionate in the application of her unorthodox teaching methods, in her attraction to the married art master, Teddy Lloyd, in her affair with the bachelor music master, Gordon Lowther, and—most important—in her dedication to ‘her girls,’ the students she selects to be her crème de la crème.”

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (1962). “Merricat Blackwood lives on the family estate with her sister Constance and her uncle Julian. Not long ago there were seven Blackwoods—until a fatal dose of arsenic found its way into the sugar bowl one terrible night.”

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1962). “Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O’Keefe (athlete, student, and one of the most popular boys in high school)… are in search of Meg’s father, a scientist who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government on the tesseract problem.”

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing (1962). “Doris Lessing’s best-known and most influential novel, The Golden Notebook retains its extraordinary power and relevance decades after its initial publication.”

The Group by Mary McCarthy (1963). “Written with a trenchant, sardonic edge, The Group is a dazzlingly outspoken novel and a captivating look at the social history of America between two world wars.”

Efuru by Flora Nwapa (1966). “The work, a rich exploration of Nigerian village life and values, offers a realistic picture of gender issues in a patriarchal society as well as the struggles of a nation exploited by colonialism.”

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1966). “Antoinette Cosway, a sensual and protected young woman … is sold into marriage to the prideful Mr. Rochester. Rhys portrays Cosway amidst a society so driven by hatred, so skewed in its sexual relations, that it can literally drive a woman out of her mind.”

#must-read #female authors #classic literature #literature written by women #literary classic #literary classics written by women

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teachanarchy · 8 years ago

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Many Americans might not know the more polemical side of race writing in our history. The canon of African-American literature is well established. Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, James Baldwin are familiar figures. Far less so is Samuel Morton (champion of the obsolete theory of polygenesis) or Thomas Dixon (author of novels romanticizing Klan violence). It is tempting to think that the influence of those dusty polemics ebbed as the dust accumulated. But their legacy persists, freshly shaping much of our racial discourse.

On the occasion of Black History Month, I’ve selected the most influential books on race and the black experience published in the United States for each decade of the nation’s existence — a history of race through ideas, arranged chronologically on the shelf. (In many cases, I’ve added a complementary work, noted with an asterisk.) Each of these books was either published first in the United States or widely read by Americans. They inspired — and sometimes ended — the fiercest debates of their times: debates over slavery, segregation, mass incarceration. They offered racist explanations for inequities, and antiracist correctives. Some — the poems of Phillis Wheatley, the memoir of Frederick Douglass — stand literature’s test of time. Others have been roundly debunked by science, by data, by human experience. No list can ever be comprehensive, and “most influential” by no means signifies “best.” But I would argue that together, these works tell the history of anti-black racism in the United States as painfully, as eloquently, as disturbingly as words can. In many ways, they also tell its present.

1771-1780

“Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral,” by Phillis Wheatley (1773)

No book during the Revolutionary era stirred more debates over slavery than this first-ever book by an African-American woman. Assimilationists and abolitionists exhibited Wheatley and her poetry as proof that an “uncultivated barbarian from Africa” could be civilized, that enslaved Africans “may be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train” of European civilization and human freedom. Enslavers disagreed, and lashed out at Wheatley’s “Poems.”

* “An Address to the Inhabitants of British Settlements, on the Slavery of the Negroes in America,” by Benjamin Rush (1773)

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1781-1790

“Notes on the State of Virginia,” by Thomas Jefferson (1785)

The author of American freedom in 1776 wrote of American slavery as a necessary evil in this book, widely regarded as the most important political portrait of the nascent United States. Jefferson indicted the “tyranny” of slavery while also supplying fellow slaveholders with a batch of prejudices to justify slavery’s rapid expansion. Blacks “are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind,” he wrote. And Wheatley is not “a poet.”

* “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano; Or, Gustavus Vassa, the African” (1789)

1791-1800

“Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Almanac and Ephemers,” by Benjamin Banneker (1792-97)

After helping to survey the District of Columbia, Banneker compiled his first almanac, replacing Wheatley’s “Poems” as abolitionists’ finest showpiece of black capability. He enclosed the almanac in a letter to Jefferson, writing, “I apprehend you will embrace every opportunity, to eradicate that train of absurd and false ideas and opinions.” Jefferson did not jump off the train, but other Americans did while reading this remarkable book.

1801-1810

“An Essay on the Causes of Variety of Complexion and Figure in the Human Species,” by Samuel Stanhope Smith (second edition, 1810)

The Princeton president tried to stop the polygenesis theory that the races are created unequal, stoutly defending biblical monogenesis and the notion that first humans were white. He called for physical assimilation: In a colder climate blackened skins would revert to their original white beauty; “the woolly substance” on black heads would become “fine, straight hair” again. His racist idea of the lighter and straighter the better still demeans after all these years.

1811-1820

“Thoughts on the Colonization of Free Blacks,” by Robert Finley (1816)

Blacks should be freed, trained “for self-government” and returned to Africa, according to the antislavery clergyman and former student of Samuel Stanhope Smith. Finley wrote the manifesto for colonization, a cause supported by several American leaders until Lincoln’s failed schemes doomed the movement during the Civil War.

* “An Appeal From the Judgments of Great Britain Respecting the United States of America,” by Robert Walsh (1819)

1821-1830

“An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World,” by David Walker (1829)

This Boston abolitionist viciously assailed colonization and “Mr. Jefferson’s arguments” in the first book-length attack on the “inhuman system of slavery” by an African-American. Black seamen smuggled the appeal into chained Southern hands; community readers sounded the appeal to violently throw off the violent yoke. Walker’s ultimatum for slaveholders: Give us freedom and rights, or you will “curse the day that you ever were born!”

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1831-1840

“Crania Americana,” by Samuel Morton (1839)

This book revived the theory of polygenesis that dominated intellectual racial discourse until the Civil War. What reviewers hailed as an “immense body of facts” were Morton’s measurements of the “mean internal capacity” of the human skulls in his renowned collection in Philadelphia, from which he concluded that whites had the “highest intellectual endowments.”

* “Review of the Debate in the Virginia Legislature of 1831 and 1832,” by Thomas Roderick Dew (1832), and “Thoughts on African Colonization,” by William Lloyd Garrison (1832)

1841-1850

“The Narrative of the Life,” of Frederick Douglass (1845)

The gripping best seller earned Douglass international prestige and forced readers around the world to come to terms with slavery’s brutality and blacks’ freedom dreams. No other piece of antislavery literature so devastated Morton’s defense of polygenesis, or John C. Calhoun’s recently popularized theory that slavery was a “positive good.”

* “The Narrative of Sojourner Truth” (1850)

1851-1860

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)

Inflamed by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Stowe offered a fugitive slave story that made millions sympathize with slaves. Her novel — and its dramatic adaptations — turned the “hard and dominant Anglo-Saxon race” toward Christian salvation with a simple lesson: to stop enslaving quintessential Christians in all their “lowly docility of heart.” From accommodating Uncle Toms to superior mulattoes to soulful Africans, the book also popularized any number of lasting racist tropes.

* “On the Origin of Species,” by Charles Darwin (1859)

1861-1870

“The Principles of Biology,” by Herbert Spencer (1864)

In “Principles,” Spencer coined the term “survival of the fittest,” becoming the ultimate amplifier of Social Darwinism in the United States. Americans fell in love with his comprehensive theory of evolution, claiming that Reconstruction policies would allow inferior blacks to evolve (or assimilate) into white civilization or lose the struggle for existence. The net effect of Spencer’s Social Darwinism: the eugenics movement of the early 20th century.

* “Hereditary Genius,” by Sir Francis Galton (1869)

1871-1880

“The Prostrate State: South Carolina Under Negro Government,” by James Pike (1874)

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This prominent New York journalist blanketed the nation with fairy tales of corrupt, incompetent, lazy Black Republican politicians. Reconstruction’s enfranchising policies were a “tragedy,” Pike wrote, nothing but “the slave rioting in the halls of his master.” His “objective” reporting caused many once sympathetic Northerners to demand a national reunion based on white rule.

* “The Descent of Man,” by Charles Darwin (1871)

1881-1890

“Our Brother in Black: His Freedom and His Future,” by Atticus Haygood (1881)

In the 1880s, Southern segregationists marketed their region as the New South, among them this Methodist bishop and Emory College president. In his popular book, Haygood eased consciences that the end of Reconstruction meant the end of black rights. The New South will be as good for black folk as the old, Haygood declared, as new white Southerners would continue to civilize inferior black folk in their nicely segregated free-labor society.

* “The Plantation Negro as a Freeman,” by Philip Alexander Bruce (1889)

1891-1900

“Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro,” by Frederick Hoffman (1896)

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Better covered than the Plessy v. Ferguson decision that year, “Race Traits” catapulted this statistician into scientific celebrity. At the time of emancipation, blacks were “healthy in body and cheerful in mind,” Hoffman wrote. Thirty years later, the 1890 census forecasts their “gradual extinction,” due to natural immoralities and a propensity for diseases. He blazed the trail of racist ideas in American criminology when he concluded that higher black arrest rates indicated blacks committed more crimes.

* “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases,” by Ida B. Wells (1892)

1901-1910

“The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan,” by Thomas Dixon (1905)

Convinced that “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” had misrepresented the South, Dixon emerged as Jim Crow’s novelist laureate. “The Clansman” was the most influential of his works, particularly after it was adapted into a popular play and D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film “The Birth of a Nation.” In Dixon’s telling, the virtuous Ku Klux Klan saved Southern whites from their “awful suffering” during Reconstruction.

* “The Souls of Black Folk,” by W.E.B. Du Bois (1903)

1911-1920

“Tarzan of the Apes,” by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1912)

With his racist colonial plot, Burroughs glued animals, savages and Africa together in the American mind, and redeemed white masculinity after the first black heavyweight champion knocked it out in 1908. Forget boxing and Jack Johnson — white men embraced Tarzan, the inspiration for comic strips, 25 sequels and dozens of motion pictures.

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* “The Passing of the Great Race,” by Madison Grant (1916)

1921-1930

“Nigger Heaven,” by Carl Van Vechten (1926)

Van Vechten was the Harlem Renaissance’s ubiquitous white patron, a man as curiously passionate about showing off black people as zookeepers are about showing off their rare species. Through this best-selling novel, he gave white Americans a racist tour of the safari of Harlem, casting assimilated blacks in the guise of tropical exotic lands being spoiled by white developers.

* “The Weary Blues,” by Langston Hughes (1926)

1931-1940

“Gone with the Wind,” by Margaret Mitchell (1936)

The Pulitzer Prize-winning jewel of the plantation fiction genre, this was Americans’ second all-time favorite book behind the Bible, according to a 2014 Harris Poll. Mitchell portrays white enslavers as noble, slaves as shiftless, docile and loyal. Mitchell did for slavery what Dixon did for Reconstruction and Burroughs for Africa.

* “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” by Zora Neale Hurston (1937) and “Native Son,” by Richard Wright (1940)

1941-1950

“An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy,” by Gunnar Myrdal (1944)

As Americans fought against Nazism overseas, this Swedish economist served up an encyclopedic revelation of racial discrimination in their backyards. If there was a scholarly trigger for the civil rights movement, this was it. Myrdal concluded that “a great majority” of whites would “give the Negro a substantially better deal if they knew the facts.” Segregationists seethed, and racial reformers were galvanized to show the truth of Jim Crow.

* “Race: Science and Politics,” by Ruth Benedict (revised edition, 1943)

1951-1960

“To Kill a Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee (1960)

This instant classic about a white lawyer defending a black man wrongly accused of rape was the “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” of the civil rights movement. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy,” a neighbor tells the lawyer’s daughter, Scout. She’s talking about their reclusive white neighbor, Boo Radley, but the African-Americans of 1930s Alabama come across as singing spectators, thankful for the moral heroism of Atticus Finch. The white savior remains the most popular racist character in American letters.

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* “Invisible Man,” by Ralph Ellison (1952)

1961-1970

“The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” as told to Alex Haley (1965)

It was the manifesto for the Black Power movement, where young black saviors arose, alienated by white saviors and the slow pace of civil rights change. Malcolm wrote black pride before James Brown sang it. His ideological transformation from assimilationist to anti-white separatist to antiracist inspired millions of all races.

* “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou (1969)

1971-1980

“Roots: The Saga of an American Family,” by Alex Haley (1976)

For African-Americans in the radiance of Black Power’s turn to Pan-Africanism, the thrilling and terrifying story of Kunta Kinte and his descendants arrived right on time. The best seller inspired one of the most watched shows in American television history. “Roots” dispatched legions of racist ideas of backward Africa, of civilizing slavery, of the contented slave, of loose enslaved women. The plantation genre of happy mammies and Sambos was gone with the wind.

* “The Declining Significance of Race,” by William Julius Wilson (1978)

1981-1990

“The Color Purple,” by Alice Walker (1982)

Of the black feminist classics of the period, Walker’s garnered the most prestige — a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize — and controversy. Set in 1930s rural Georgia, the story shows a black woman finding happiness beyond abusive black patriarchs, Southern poverty and racist whites. Steven Spielberg’s 1985 blockbuster adaptation cemented its legacy.

* “Beloved,” by Toni Morrison (1987)

1991-2000

“The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life,” by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray (1994)

Herrnstein and Murray offered validation for Americans raging about pathological blacks and crime, welfare and affirmative action. “Inequality of endowments, including intelligence, is a reality,” they wrote, sparking one of the most intense academic wars in history over whether genes or environment had caused the racial “achievement gap” in standardized test scores.

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* “America in Black and White,” by Stephan Thernstrom and Abigail Thernstrom (1997)

2001-2010

“The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” by Michelle Alexander (2010)

Two years after Obama’s election, Alexander put the entire criminal justice system on trial, exposing racial discrimination from lawmaking to policing to the denial of voting rights to ex-prisoners. This best seller struck the spark that would eventually light the fire of Black Lives Matter.

* “Dreams From My Father,” by Barack Obama (2004 reprint)

#blacks #race #racism #us history

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