Overshadowed: A Novel

Sutton Elbert GriggsProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.5
Word count
249K words
Chapters
25

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Vulnerable GroupsFate and FortuneOppressive MoodComplex HumanityPsychological InsightSocial CritiqueRacial PredicamentIdentity ConstructionMoral DilemmaAmerican South

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Overshadowed: A Novel by Sutton E. GriggsAuthor: Griggs, Sutton E. (Sutton Elbert), 1872-1933,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: May 5, 2011

Editor's review

One of the representative works of early African American writer Sutton E. Griggs, offered here as a free public-domain English text—a good entry point for understanding African American literature and social issues of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The novel revolves around race, family, and the pressures of fate, bearing the clear marks of the social-reform novel of its day; plot and character circumstances illuminate each other, conveying the author's intent to engage public issues through literature. The electronic edition comes from Project Gutenberg, with clean formatting and easy searchability, suitable for classroom discussion, literary-history reading, or extensive English reading. As you read, pay attention to shifts in narrative perspective and how they contrast with the characters' fates, and consider the work's historical limitations and value against the background of American literary history.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read the preface or a literary-history introduction first to understand the author's era before starting the text
  2. After each chapter, summarize the characters' circumstances and conflicts in one or two sentences to keep track of the main thread
  3. Mark unfamiliar historical terms and look them up together after finishing a section
  4. Read alongside American social novels of the same period to compare narrative strategies

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25

FAQ

What language version is this book? This is a free public-domain English e-book from Project Gutenberg. The text is in English with no Chinese translation, so it suits readers with some English reading ability.
What background should I know before reading? It helps to first learn the basics of African American literature and the social-reform movements in the United States from the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, which makes it easier to understand the characters' circumstances and the author's intent.
Is it suitable for classroom teaching? It can serve as supplementary reading for courses on American literature or race issues, but teachers should supply historical background and guide students in discussing the work's historical limitations.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Sutton Elbert Griggs Author · American · 1872–1933

Sutton E. Griggs (1872–1933) was an African American writer, Baptist minister, and social activist, born in Texas and died in Houston. In his fiction he addressed America's racial problems; his best-known novel, Imperium in Imperio, imagines a secret African American nation within the United States as a way to explore the future of the black race. His other novels, including The Hindered Hand, Overshadowed, and Unfettered, also center on racial oppression and the condition of African Americans, and are marked by strong social critique and moral purpose. He wrote more than thirty books, advocated black self-respect and self-help, and founded the Orion Publishing Company to circulate his own works and African American voices. Four of his works are held in this collection; public information on his life and career is limited, and studies tend to focus on the themes of his fiction and his publishing activities.