Passing

With the publication of her second novel, Passing, Nella Larsen established herself as a luminary of the Harlem Renaissance and modernist literature. A voracious reader and careful observer, Larsen penned this intimate psychological portrait of two women navigating the complex strictures of race and gender. Larsen’s personal history was deeply entwined with the history of The New York Public Library. As the first African American student to enroll in its library school, she graduated to manage the children’s room at the 135th Street Branch, now the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Her work with the Library connected her to Harlem’s cultural elite, including W.E.B. Du Bois, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and her colleague at 135th Street, Regina Anderson. Larsen inscribed this first-edition copy of Passing to Anderson and her husband.