Biography Books

Of Human Bondage

W. Somerset Maugham

Of Human Bondage is W. Somerset Maugham's 1915 masterpiece featuring the young Philip Carey. The work is considered autobiographical, though Maugham claims that most was "pure invention." The novel is..

Twelve Men

Theodore Dreiser

Although world-famous for his novels Sister Carrie and Jennie Gerhardt, Theodore Dreiser was also highly accomplished in journalism, autobiography, and travel writing. In 1919, having recently accepte..

Army Life in a Black Regiment

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Army Life in a Black Regiment is biographical work by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. These pages record some of the adventures of the First South Carolina Volunteers, the first slave regiment mustered in..

Collected Articles of Frederick Douglass, a Slave

Frederick Douglass

Excerpts from the author of the book Collected Articles of Frederick Douglass, a Slave written by himself.In the first narrative of my experience in slavery, written nearly forty years ago, and i..

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

Henry Fielding

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, often known simply as Tom Jones, is a comic novel by English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding. It is both a Bildungsroman and a picaresque novel. It was fi..

Black Rebellion

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Black Rebellion by Thomas Wentworth Higginson is a fascinating account of five slave insurrections, among them the story of the Maroons, escaped slaves in the West Indies and South America who success..

Clotel, or The President's Daughter

William Wells Brown

Clotel; or, The President's Daughter is an 1853 novel by United States author and playwright William Wells Brown about Clotel and her sister, fictional slave daughters of Thomas Jefferson. Brown, who ..

The Book of American Negro Poetry

James Weldon Johnson

The Book of American Negro Poetry is a collection of poems by James Weldon Johnson on African-American studies. Preface of the book by author follows:A people may become great through many means,..