Contending Forces

Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins (1859 - 1930)

Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins, despite an impressive record of productivity and creativity as a novelist, playwright, short fiction writer, editor, actress, and singer, is an African-American woman writer who has essentially been consigned to the dustbins of American literary history. Though contemporary with Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Charles W. Chesnutt, and Paul Laurence Dunbar, Hopkins is only now beginning to receive the kind of critical attention that Harper has enjoyed for a slightly longer period and that Chesnutt and Dunbar have always had. Hopkins had work published in several genres, but her reputation today rests primarily upon Contending Forces: A Romance Illustrative of Negro Life North and South, the novel she published in 1900. (Introduction by Margaret)

Genre(s): General Fiction, Romance

Language: English

Section Chapter Reader Time
Play 00 Preface Margaret Espaillat
00:05:17
Play 01 A Retrospect of the Past Margaret Espaillat
00:20:01
Play 02 The Days "Before the War" Margaret Espaillat
00:13:56
Play 03 "Coming Events Cast their Shadows Before" Margaret Espaillat
00:29:42
Play 04 The Tragedy Margaret Espaillat
00:21:42
Play 05 Ma Smith's Lodging-House Margaret Espaillat
00:23:31
Play 06 Ma Smith's Lodging-House - Concluded Margaret Espaillat
00:22:20
Play 07 Friendship Margaret Espaillat
00:37:19
Play 08 The Sewing-Circle Margaret Espaillat
00:34:55
Play 09 "Love Took up the Harp of Life" Margaret Espaillat
00:23:44
Play 10 The Fair Margaret Espaillat
00:18:13
Play 11 The Fair - Concluded Margaret Espaillat
00:30:40
Play 12 A Colored Politician Margaret Espaillat
00:27:51
Play 13 The American Colored League Margaret Espaillat
00:19:58
Play 14 Luke Sawyer Speaks to the League Margaret Espaillat
00:13:06
Play 15 Will Smith's Defense of his Race Margaret Espaillat
00:15:47
Play 16 John Langley Consults Madam Frances Margaret Espaillat
00:18:10
Play 17 The Canterbury Club Dinner Margaret Espaillat
00:21:46
Play 18 What Easter Sunday Brought Margaret Espaillat
00:28:39
Play 19 The Bitter Arrow Margaret Espaillat
00:23:50
Play 20 Mother-Love Margaret Espaillat
00:28:40
Play 21 After Many Days Margaret Espaillat
00:37:13
Play 22 "So He Bringeth Them into their Desired Haven" Margaret Espaillat
00:25:00