An Imperative Duty
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An Imperative Duty
''An Imperative Duty'' is a short realist novel by William Dean Howells published in 1891. The novel explores the idea of "passing" through the racially mixed character of Rhoda Aldgate, a young woman whose aunt informs her that she is one-sixteenth African American. Rhoda lived her whole life "passing" as a white person. List of Characters *Rhoda Aldgate, a woman of one-sixteenth black ancestry *Rev. Mr. Bloomingdale, Rhoda's first suitor, a white man *Dr. Olney, Mrs. Meredith's physician and Rhoda's eventual suitor, a white man *Mrs. Meredith, Rhoda's aunt, a white woman Plot summary The book is about Rhoda Aldgate, a young woman who discovers she is one-sixteenth African American, after living her whole life as a white person. Rhoda's father was Mrs. Meredith's brother, a white man, and Rhoda's mother was a southern woman of one-eighth black ancestry. In the nineteenth century, Rhoda's mother would have been referred to as an "octoroon." Themes The book is about a "Tragic Mul ...
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William Dean Howells
William Dean Howells (; March 1, 1837 – May 11, 1920) was an American realist novelist, literary critic, and playwright, nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters". He was particularly known for his tenure as editor of ''The Atlantic Monthly'', as well as for his own prolific writings, including the Christmas story "Christmas Every Day" and the novels ''The Rise of Silas Lapham'' and '' A Traveler from Altruria''. Biography Early life and family William Dean Howells was born on March 1, 1837, in Martinsville, Ohio (now known as Martins Ferry, Ohio), to William Cooper Howells and Mary Dean Howells, the second of eight children. His father was a newspaper editor and printer who moved frequently around Ohio. In 1840, the family settled in Hamilton, Ohio,Lynn, 36 where his father oversaw a Whig newspaper and followed Swedenborgianism. Their nine years there were the longest period that they stayed in one place. The family had to live frugally, although the young Howells was encou ...
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Literary Realism
Literary realism is a literary genre, part of the broader realism in arts, that attempts to represent subject-matter truthfully, avoiding speculative fiction and supernatural elements. It originated with the realist art movement that began with mid- nineteenth-century French literature (Stendhal) and Russian literature (Alexander Pushkin). Literary realism attempts to represent familiar things as they are. Realist authors chose to depict everyday and banal activities and experiences. Background Broadly defined as "the representation of reality", realism in the arts is the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, as well as implausible, exotic and supernatural elements. Realism has been prevalent in the arts at many periods, and is in large part a matter of technique and training, and the avoidance of stylization. In the visual arts, illusionistic realism is the accurate depiction of lifeforms, perspective, and the ...
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Harper & Brothers
Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City. History J. & J. Harper (1817–1833) James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishing business J. & J. Harper in New York City in 1817. Their two brothers, Joseph Wesley and Fletcher, joined them in the mid-1820s. Harper & Brothers (1833–1962) The company changed its name to "Harper & Brothers" in 1833. The headquarters of the publishing house were located at 331 Pearl Street, facing Franklin Square in Lower Manhattan (about where the Manhattan approach to the Brooklyn Bridge lies today). Harper & Brothers began publishing ''Harper's New Monthly Magazine'' in New York City in 1850. The brothers also published ''Harper's Weekly'' (starting in New York City in June 1857), '' Harper's Bazar'' (starting in New York City in November 2, 1867), and ''Harper's Young People'' (starting in New York City in 1879). George B. M ...
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Literary Realism
Literary realism is a literary genre, part of the broader realism in arts, that attempts to represent subject-matter truthfully, avoiding speculative fiction and supernatural elements. It originated with the realist art movement that began with mid- nineteenth-century French literature (Stendhal) and Russian literature (Alexander Pushkin). Literary realism attempts to represent familiar things as they are. Realist authors chose to depict everyday and banal activities and experiences. Background Broadly defined as "the representation of reality", realism in the arts is the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, as well as implausible, exotic and supernatural elements. Realism has been prevalent in the arts at many periods, and is in large part a matter of technique and training, and the avoidance of stylization. In the visual arts, illusionistic realism is the accurate depiction of lifeforms, perspective, and the ...
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Quadroon
In the colonial societies of the Americas and Australia, a quadroon or quarteron was a person with one quarter African/ Aboriginal and three quarters European ancestry. Similar classifications were octoroon for one-eighth black (Latin root ''octo-'', means "eight") and quintroon for one-sixteenth black. Governments of the time sometimes incorporated the terms in law, defining rights and restrictions. The use of such terminology is a characteristic of hypodescent, which is the practice within a society of assigning children of mixed unions to the ethnic group which the dominant group perceives as being subordinate. The racial designations refer specifically to the number of full-blooded African ancestors or equivalent, emphasizing the quantitative least, with quadroon signifying that a person has one-quarter black ancestry. Etymology The word ''quadroon'' was borrowed from the French ''quarteron'' and the Spanish ''cuarterón'', both of which have their root in the Latin ''quartus ...
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Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical character recognition (OCR), and stored in its digital database.The basic Google book link is found at: https://books.google.com/ . The "advanced" interface allowing more specific searches is found at: https://books.google.com/advanced_book_search Books are provided either by publishers and authors through the Google Books Partner Program, or by Google's library partners through the Library Project. Additionally, Google has partnered with a number of magazine publishers to digitize their archives. The Publisher Program was first known as Google Print when it was introduced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2004. The Google Books Library Project, which scans works in the collections of library partners and adds them to the digital invent ...
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1891 American Novels
Events January–March * January 1 ** Paying of old age pensions begins in Germany. ** A strike of 500 Hungarian steel workers occurs; 3,000 men are out of work as a consequence. **Germany takes formal possession of its new African territories. * January 2 – A. L. Drummond of New York is appointed Chief of the Treasury Secret Service. * January 4 – The Earl of Zetland issues a declaration regarding the famine in the western counties of Ireland. * January 5 **The 1891 Australian shearers' strike, Australian shearers' strike, that leads indirectly to the foundation of the Australian Labor Party, begins. **A fight between the United States and Indians breaks out near Pine Ridge agency. **Henry B. Brown, of Michigan, is sworn in as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Supreme Court. **A fight between railway strikers and police breaks out at Motherwell, Scotland. * January 6 – Encounters continue, between strikers and ...
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Works By William Dean Howells
Works may refer to: People * Caddy Works (1896–1982), American college sports coach * Samuel Works (c. 1781–1868), New York politician Albums * '' ''Works'' (Pink Floyd album)'', a Pink Floyd album from 1983 * ''Works'', a Gary Burton album from 1972 * ''Works'', a Status Quo album from 1983 * ''Works'', a John Abercrombie album from 1991 * ''Works'', a Pat Metheny album from 1994 * ''Works'', an Alan Parson Project album from 2002 * ''Works Volume 1'', a 1977 Emerson, Lake & Palmer album * ''Works Volume 2'', a 1977 Emerson, Lake & Palmer album * '' The Works'', a 1984 Queen album Other uses * Microsoft Works, a collection of office productivity programs created by Microsoft * IBM Works, an office suite for the IBM OS/2 operating system * Mount Works, Victoria Land, Antarctica See also * The Works (other) * Work (other) Work may refer to: * Work (human activity), intentional activity people perform to support themselves, others, or the community ** ...
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Novels Set In Boston
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the historica ...
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Realist Novels
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts * Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *Classical Realism *Literary realism, a movement from the mid 19th to the early 20th century *Neorealism (art) **Italian neorealism (film) ** Indian neorealism (film) *New realism, a movement founded in 1960 *Realism (art movement), 19th-century painting group *Theatrical realism, one of the many types of theatre such as Naturalism *Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, an art movement *Socialist realism, an art style developed in the Soviet Union In philosophy *Philosophical realism Related realist philosophies include: *Aesthetic realism (metaphysics) * Agential realism (Barad) *Australian realism *Austrian realism *Conceptualist realism (Wiggins) * Critical realism (other) * Dialectical realism (Hacking) *Direct realism * Empirical realism *Entity realism * Epistemic ...
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