Passing : Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Criticism.

Contents
\
Introduction: Nella Larsen's Erotics of Race
Acknowledgments
A Note on the Text
IX
xxix
xxxi
The Text of Passing i
Backgrounds and Contexts 83

REVIEWS 85
Mary Rennels • "Passing" Is a Novel of Longings (April 27, 1929) 85
Beyond the Color Line (April 28, 1929) 85
Margaret Cheney Dawson • The Color Line (April 28, 1929) 87
The Dilemma of Mixed Race: Another Study of the
Color-line in New York (May 1, 1929) 88
Alice Dunbar-Nelson • As in a Looking Glass (May 3, 1929) 90
W. B. Seabrook • Touch of the Tar-brush (May 18, 1929) 91
Esther Hyman • Passing (June 1929) 93
Aubrey Bowser • The Cat Came Back (June 5, 1929) 94
Mary Griffin • Novel of Race Consciousness
0une23, 1929) 96
W. E. B. Du Bois • Passing Quly 1929) 97
Passing (July 1929) 99
Mary Fleming Larabee • Passing (Aug. 1929) 99
Do They Always Return? (Sept. 28, 1929) loi
"M. L. H." • Passing (Dec. 1929) 102
Passing (Dec. 12, 1929) 102

CONTEMPORARY COVERAGE OF PASSING AND RACE IO5
When Is a Caucasian Not a Caucasian? (March 2, 191 1) 105
Writer Says Brazil Has No Color Line (Oct. 1925) 107
Don Pierson • Does It Pay to "Pass?" (Aug. 20, 1927) 107
Juanita Ellsworth • Frow White Negroes (May-June 1928) 109
3,000 Negroes Cross the Line Each Year Quly 12, 1928) 111
Louis Fremont Baldwin • From Negro to Caucasion,
Or How the Ethiopian Is Changing His Skin ( 1 929) 112
Emilie Hahn • Crossing the Color Line Quly 28, 1929) 117
Caleb Johnson • From Crossing the Color Line
(Aug. 26, 1931) 121
75,000 Pass in Philadelphia Every Day (Dec. 19, 1931) 123
Careful LvTJcher! He May Be Your Brother (Jan. 21, 1932) 124
Blonde Girl Was 'Passing (Jan. 23, 1932) 125
Virginia Is Still Hounding 'White' Negroes Who 'Pass' 126
THE RHINELANDEr/jONES CASE I29
Society Youth Weds Cabman's Daughter (Nov. 14, 1924) 129
Poor Girl to Fight Hubby's Parents (Dec. 26, 1924) 130
From Calls Rhinelander Dupe of Girl He Wed (Nov. 10, 1925) 133
From Loved Rhinelander, Wife's Letters Say (Nov. 13, 1925) 134
From Rhinelander Bares Love Secrets (Nov. 21, 1925) 137
Archie Morgan • Frotw Kip's "Soul Message" Notes Read
(Nov. 28. 1925) 138
From Rhinelander Jury Reaches a Decision after Twelve Hours
(Dec. 5, 1925) 145
[Rhinelander Editorial], TTie Crisis (Jan. 1926) 147
Rhinelander Gets a Fair Deal (Jan. 26, 1926) 147
Mrs. Rhinelander to Sail Quly 16, 1926) 148


ABOUT NELLA LARSEN I49
Thelma E. Berlack • New Author Unearthed Right Here in
Harlem (May 23, 1928) 149
Mary Rennels • Behind the Backs of Books and Authors
(April 13, 1929) 150
[Letter about Nella Larsen] • Jean Blackwell Hutson to
Louise Fox (Aug. 1, 1969) 151
Author's Statements 152
[Nella Larsen Imes, Guggenheim Application] 152
[In Defense of Sanctuary] 156
Letters 158
To Carl Van Vechten [1925] 158
To Charles S. Johnson [Aug. 1926] 158
To Eddie Wasserman [April 3, 1928] 161
To Eddie Wasserman [April 5, 1928] 161
To Dorothy Peterson [n.d.] 162
To Dorothy Peterson [July 19, 1927] 163
To Dorothy Peterson [July 21, 1 927] 164
To Dorothy Peterson [Aug. 2, 1927] 166
To Langston Hughes [n.d.] 167
To Langston Hughes [1930] 168
To Carl Van Vechten [April 15, 1929] 168
To Gertrude Stein (Jan. 26, 1931) 169
To Carl Van Vechten [May 14, 1932] 170

THE TRAGIC MULATro(A) I7I
Lydia Maria Child • The Quadroons 171
Frank J. Webb • From The Garies and Their Friends 180
William Wells Brown • From Clotel 192
Frances E. W Harper • From lola Leroy 200
William Dean Hovvells • From An Imperative Duty 207
Kate Chopin • The Father of Desiree's Baby 213
Mark Twain • From Pudd'nhead Wilson - 218
Charles Waddell Chesnutt • From The House Behind
the Cedars 220
Georgia Douglas Johnson • The Octoroon 227
Countee Cullen • Near White 227
Langston Hughes • Mulatto 227
Fannie Hurst • From hnitation of Life 229

selections from stories and novels of passing:
"the moment of regret" 243
Frances E. W Harper • From lola Leroy 243
James Weldon Johnson • From The Autohiography of an
Ex-Colored Man 248
Walter White • From Flight 257
Jessie Redmon Fauset • From Plum Bun 262
George S. Schuyler • From Black No More 270
Langston Hughes • Passing 281

SELECTED WRITINGS FROM THE FIARLEM RENAISSANCE 285
Joseph Seamon Cotter, Jr. • The Mulatto to His Critics 285
Jessie Redmon Fauset • The Sleeper Wakes 285
Countee Cullen • Heritage 308
Countee Cullen • Two Who Crossed a Line 311 W E. B. Du Bois • Criteria of Negro Art 312
Nella Larsen [Pseud. Allen Semi] • Freedom 320
George S. Schuyler • From The Negro-Art Hokum 324
Carl Van Vechten • From Nigger Heaven 326
Langston Hughes • Passing for White, Passing for
Colored, Passing for Negroes Plus 332

Criticism 335
Mary Mabel Youman • Nella Larsen's Passing: A Study
in Irony 337
Claudia Tate • Nella Larsen's Passing: A Problem of
Interpretation 342
Mary Helen Washington • Nella Larsen: Mystery Woman
of the Harlem Renaissance 350
Cheryl A. Wall • From Passing for What? Aspects of
Identity in Nella Larsen's Novels 356
Deborah E. McDowell • [From Black Female Sexuality
in Passing] 363
Thadious M. Davis; • Nella Larsen's Harlem Aesthetic 379
Mark J. Madigan • From. Miscegenation and "The Dicta
of Race and Class": The Rhinelander Case and Nella
Larsen's Passing 387
Jennifer DeVere Brody • Clare Kendry's "True" Colors:
Race and Class Conflict in Nella Larsen's Passing 393
Helena Michie • From Sororophohia 409
Judith Butler • Passing, Queering: Nella Larsen's
Psychoanalytic Challenge 417
Ann duCille • From Passing Fancies 435
George Hutchinson • Nella Larsen and the Veil of Race 444
Kate Baldwin • Front The Recurring Conditions of
Nella Larsen's Passing 463
Gayle Wald • Passing and Domestic Tragedy 486
Catherine Rottenberg • Passing: Race, Identification, and
Desire 489
Miriam Thaggert • Racial Etiquette: Nella Larsen's Passing
and the Rhinelander Case 507


Nella Larsen: A Chronology 533
Selected Bibliography
by Ruth Blandon, with help from Lucia Hodgson 539