Ocean State Libraries

Uncle Tom, Topsy, Sambo, Simon Legree, little Eva: their names are American bywords, and all of them are characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe's remarkable novel of the pre-Civil War South. Uncle Tom's Cabin was revolutionary in 1852 for its passionate indictment of slavery and for its presentation of Tom, "a man of humanity," as the first black hero in American fiction. Labeled racist and condescending by some contemporary critics, it remains a shocking,...

March, 1850. In the tense days before the Civil War, a slave breakout in the labyrinthine swamps of Maryland’s eastern shore sets loose a riveting drama of violence, hope, and redemption among slave catchers, plantation owners, watermen, runaway slaves, and free blacks. Liz Spocott, a beautiful runaway slave, shot and near death, is wracked by disturbing visions of the future as she lies shackled to an old woman in the prison attic of the notorious...

"To escape from his violent and drunken father, a 13-year-old boy from the wrong side of the tracks, Huckleberry Finn, fakes his own death and floats away on a raft down the Mississippi with Jim, a runaway slave.In a series of unforgettable adventures narrated by Huck, they encounter a cross-section of characters from slave-hunters, and con men to feuding aristocrats.This was the first major American novel to be written in the vernacular, a dark and...

"From Percival Everett-a recipient of the NBCC Lifetime Achievement Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Booker Prize, and numerous PEN awards-comes James, a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby...

Music offers Kate sweet refuge from her troubles . . . but real freedom is sweeter.

In Westerville, Ohio, 1855, Kate Winter's dreams are almost within reach. As the first woman to graduate from Otterbein College, she'll be guaranteed her deepest wish: escape from the dark secret haunting her family. But with her mother determined to marry her off to a wealthy man, Kate must face reality. She has to run. Now. And she

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Book 3 of Bells of Lowell. Timid yet alluring Daughtie Winfield finds herself in a precarious position when the new doctor casts his favor upon her. Though flattered by his attention, she is drawn to Liam Donohue, a local Irish artisan. As Daughtie and Liam work together to help runaway slaves, their friendship blossoms. But her work in the mills is threatened when a downturn in profits causes the Associates to decrease wages--resulting in plans for...

"One afternoon in 1839, Emily Lowry's husband vanishes from Wreckers' Cay, an isolated island off the coast of Key West where he tends to the lighthouse. As days stretch into months, Emily has no choice but take charge of Wrecker's Cay and her husband's duties tending the light to support her three children-and a fourth on the way. Unexpected help arrives when a runaway slave named Andrew washes up on their beach. At first, Emily is intensely wary...

It was more than a century ago that Mark Twain left the notoriously violent Finn, Huckleberry Finn's father, dead, surrounded by such oddities as a wooden leg and women's undergarments. But just exactly how did Finn end up in that room? Clinch takes us on a journey through the mysterious life of an unusual man. Along the way, he introduces us to characters like the Judge--Finn's own frightening father--as well as Finn's sickly brother Will, the hermit...

Alerted to the possibility that her family had ties to the slaveholding South, Sylvia scours her attic and finds three quilts and a memoir written by Gerda, the spinster sister of clan patriarch Hans Bergstrom. The memoir describes the founding of Elm Creek Manor and how, using quilts as markers, Hans, his wife, Anneke, and Gerda came to beckon fugitive slaves to safety within its walls. When a runaway named Joanna arrives from a South Carolina plantation...