HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. ‘She wished to find out about this hazardous business of “passing,” this breaking away from all that was familiar and friendly to take one’s chance in another environment…’ The elegant Clare Kendry glides through New York’s high-society circles with ease, until the day she is reacquainted with her childhood friend, Irene. Clare chooses to ‘pass’ as white, hiding her African American heritage from her bigoted husband, while Irene leads a life that embraces it. As both women observe the other, a relationship of mutual fascination, obsession and secrets begins, one that will end in devastating circumstances. Published in 1929, Nella Larsen’s Passing lays bare the complexities of identity, race, class and gender. The novella established Larsen as one of the most important female authors in American literature and is considered a literary masterpiece of the Harlem Renaissance era.

Passing is a remarkably candid exploration of shifting racial and sexual boundaries. Clare Kendry leads a dangerous life. Fair, elegant, and ambitious, she is married to a white man unaware of her African American heritage, and has severed all ties to her past. Clare's childhood friend, Irene Redfield, just as light-skinned, has chosen to remain within the African American community, but refuses to acknowledge the racism that continues to constrict her family's happiness. A chance encounter forces both women to confront the lies they have told others-and the secret fears they have buried within themselves.

Nellallitea 'Nella' Larsen (first called Nellie Walker) (1891-1964) was an American novelist of the Harlem Renaissance who wrote two novels and a few short stories. Though her literary output was scant, what she wrote earned her recognition by her contemporaries and by present-day critics. In Passing, Clare and Irene were two childhood friends. They lost touch when Clare's father died and she moved in with two white aunts. By hiding that Clare was part-black, they allowed her to 'pass' as a white woman and marry a white racist. Irene lives in Harlem, commits herself to racial uplift, and marries a black doctor. The novel centers on the meeting of the two childhood friends later in life, and the unfolding of events as each woman is fascinated and seduced by the other's daring lifestyle. The novel traces a tragic path as Irene becomes paranoid that her husband is having an affair with Clare.

Coming to Netflix! Nella Larsen’s Passing is a distinctive and revealing novel about racial identity, now a critically acclaimed film adaptation by Rebecca Hall, starring Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga and Alexander Skarsgård. Irene Redfield, married to a successful physician, enjoys a comfortable life in Harlem, New York. Reluctantly, she renews her friendship with old school friend, Clare Kendry. Clare, who like Irene is light skinned, ‘passes’ as white and is married to a racist white man who has no idea about Clare’s racial heritage. Clare is very persuasive and Irene, despite misgivings, can’t resist letting her back into her world. As tensions mount between friends and between couples, this taut and mesmerizing narrative spins towards an unexpected end. This edition of Passing features an introduction by writer and academic, Christa Holm Vogelius.

Larsen's status as a Harlem Renaissance woman writer was rivaled by only Zora Neale Hurston's. This Norton Critical Edition of her electrifying 1929 novel includes Carla Kaplan's detailed and thought-provoking introduction, thorough explanatory annotations, and a Note on the Text. An unusually rich "Background and Contexts" section connects the novel to the historical events of the day, most notably the sensational Rhinelander/Jones case of 1925. Fourteen contemporary reviews are reprinted, including those by Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Mary Griffin, and W. E. B. Du Bois. Published accounts from 1911 to 1935--by Langston Hughes, Juanita Ellsworth, and Caleb Johnson, among others--provide a nuanced view of the contemporary cultural dimensions of race and passing, both in America and abroad. Also included are Larsen's statements on the novel and on passing, as well as a generous selection of her letters and her central writings on "The Tragic Mulatto(a)" in American literature. Additional perspective is provided by related Harlem Renaissance works. "Criticism" provides fifteen diverse critical interpretations, including those by Mary Helen Washington, Cheryl A. Wall, Deborah E. McDowell, David L. Blackmore, Kate Baldwin, and Catherine Rottenberg. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. 'She wished to find out about this hazardous business of "passing," this breaking away from all that was familiar and friendly to take one's chance in another environment...' The elegant Clare Kendry glides through New York's high-society circles with ease, until the day she is reacquainted with her childhood friend, Irene. Clare chooses to 'pass' as white, hiding her African American heritage from her bigoted husband, while Irene leads a life that embraces it. As both women observe the other, a relationship of mutual fascination, obsession and secrets begins, one that will end in devastating circumstances. Published in 1929, Nella Larsen's Passing lays bare the complexities of identity, race, class and gender. The novella established Larsen as one of the most important female authors in American literature and is considered a literary masterpiece of the Harlem Renaissance era.

Now a major Netflix film starring Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga and Alexander Skarsgard Childhood friends Clare and Irene are both light-skinned enough to pass as white, but only one of them has chosen to cross the colour line and live with the secret hanging over her. Clare believes she had successfully cut herself off from any connection to her past. Married to a racist white man who is oblivious to her African-American heritage, it is vital to her that the truth remains hidden. Irene is living as a middle-class Black woman with her husband and children in Harlem, taking on an important role in her community and embracing her origins. Both women are forced to re-examine their relationships with each other, with their husbands and with the truth, confronting their most closely guarded fears. Nella Larsen's powerful, tragic and acutely observant writing established her as a lodestar of America's Harlem Renaissance. Almost a century later, Passing and its nuanced exploration of the many fraught ways in which we seek to survive remains as timely as ever

Hypocrisy and prejudice compel a principled mulatto teacher to desert a steady job and a socially prominent fiance.

"Absolutely absorbing, fascinating, and indispensable." -- Alice Walker
"A work so fine, sensitive, and distinguished that it rises above race categories and becomes that rare object, a good novel." -- "The Saturday Review of Literature
"Married to a successful physician and prominently ensconced in Harlem's vibrant society of the 1920s, Irene Redfield leads a charmed existence-until she is shaken out of it by a chance encounter with a childhood friend who has been "passing for white." An important figure in the Harlem Renaissance, Nella Larsen was the first African-American woman to be awarded a Guggenheim fellowship. Her fictional portraits of women seeking their identities through a fog of racial confusion were informed by her own Danish-West Indian parentage, and "Passing" offers fascinating psychological insights into issues of race and gender.

Clare Kendry has severed all ties to her past. Elegant, fair-skinned and ambitious, she is married to a white man who is unaware of her African-American heritage. When she renews her acquaintance with her childhood friend Irene, who has not hidden her origins, both women are forced to reassess their marriages, the lies they have told - and to confront the secret fears they have buried within themselves. Nella Larsen's intense, taut and psychologically nuanced portrayal of lives and identities dangerously colliding established her as a leading writer of America's Harlem Renaissance. The Penguin English Library - collectable general readers' editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century to the end of the Second World War.

Now a major motion picture starring Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga and Alexander Skarsgard. A writer of the Harlem Renaissance, Nella Larsen wrote just two novels, published here, and a handful of short stories. Critically acclaimed, both speak powerfully of the contradictions and restrictions experienced by black women at that time. Quicksand, written in 1928, is an autobiographical novel about Helga Crane, a mixed race woman caught between fulfilling her desires and gaining respectability in her middle class neighbourhood. Written a year later, Passing tells the story of two childhood friends, Clare and Irene, both light skinned enough to pass as white. Reconnecting in adulthood, Clare has chosen to live as a white woman, while Irene embraces black culture and has an important role in her community. Nella Larsen's novels are moving, characterful, and important books. She pioneered writing about the conflicts of sexuality, race and the secret suffering of women in the early twentieth century.

Clare Kendry leads a dangerous life. Fair, elegant, and ambitious, she is married to a white man unaware of her African American heritage, and has severed all ties to her past. Clare’s childhood friend, Irene Redfield, just as light-skinned, has chosen to remain within the African American community, but refuses to acknowledge the racism that continues to constrict her family’s happiness. A chance encounter forces both women to confront the lies they have told others—and the secret fears they have buried within themselves.

First published in 1929, Passing is a remarkably candid exploration of shifting racial and sexual boundaries.