This well-researched true story reads like a suspense novel.
Ellen and William Craft uniquely escape their enslavement in Georgia: she passes as a white male Southern aristocrat, and he as her personal slave. After their harrowing journey north, they reach free Philadelphia, but as fugitive slaves, they are still in danger. Nonetheless, they join a lecture tour to support the Abolitionist cause.
Through their personal story, we learn the intimate complexities of slavery, the varying groups who oppose it and help fugitives, as well as those set on returning them to the South, and the difficulties that come to Blacks with Emancipation and Reconstruction—an enlightening and beautifully written book.
The remarkable true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise, with Ellen passing as a wealthy, disabled White man and William posing as "his" slave.
In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the…
Historical novels based on real people can be fascinating: we see their thoughts and overhear their conversations.
This is the story of Belle da Costa Greene, J.P. Morgan’s trusted personal librarian who helped him amass his huge collection, representing him at book and manuscript auctions as far away as London. Belle, however, is passing for white. She attributes her olive skin to a Portuguese grandmother, and Morgan doesn’t appear to suspect it.
Belle was born into an educated family whose mother decided her children would do better in NYC passing. Renouncing her identity and history is painful; she must move easily in white high society.
Besides the engaging story, I enjoyed the afterwords of the white and black authors and insights on racism in the early 20th century.
The Instant New York Times Bestseller! A Good Morning America* Book Club Pick!
Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR! Named a Notable Book of the Year by the Washington Post!
“Historical fiction at its best!”*
A remarkable novel about J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, the Black American woman who was forced to hide her true identity and pass as white in order to leave a lasting legacy that enriched our nation, from New York Times bestselling authors Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray.
In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by…
A lively detour from stories about the development of the Oxford English Dictionary, this novel describes it through the eyes of Esme, the daughter of a word researcher.
As a precocious, motherless girl, she sits under the table where the Oxford team collates definition slips. Occasionally, slips go astray, and Esme surreptitiously collects them and adds some—eventually devising an alternative dictionary.
On seeing the role of women in the creation of the OED, we wonder about the sexism of the research and language itself. Williams began with the question: do words mean different things to women and men?
This question resonates through her range of female characters and experiences. We’re captivated by Esme’s unconventional life and her idea of a dictionary to recognize lost words and all they convey.
'An enchanting story about love, loss and the power of language' Elizabeth Macneal, author of The Doll Factory
Sometimes you have to start with what's lost to truly find yourself...
Motherless and irrepressibly curious, Esme spends her childhood at her father's feet as he and his team gather words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary.
One day, she sees a slip of paper containing a forgotten word flutter to the floor unclaimed.
And so Esme begins to collect words for another dictionary in secret: The Dictionary of Lost Words. But to do so she must journey into a world…
Once a boy player in Shakespeare's company, Sander Cooke is now a hired man playing female roles. Sander's brother Johnny, a fellow actor and aspiring playwright, impregnates Frances Field, owner of a dressmaking shop on London bridge and Silkwoman to Queen Elizabeth. Johnny makes it clear that marriage is not in his plans. Frances will lose everything if she gives birth to a bastard. Sander would like to come to her rescue but has a secret maintained both onstage and off: she is actually a woman. With the help of the Roaring Girl Moll Frith, who goes about blatantly as a man, the two manage to wed. It's a marriage of convenience, but can two women create a true union? Winding around this unconventional marriage, the London theatre from 1599 to 1603 comes alive, alongside political anxieties and rebellion, troubles in Ireland, the Plague, and the aging Queen's failure to name a successor.
