Mamba's Daughters: A Novel of Charleston - Paperback

by Dubose Heyward (Author)

The author of Porgy portrays Charleston's comic social climbers

When Mamba appears on the Wentworth doorstep, this shrewd woman takes the first step in surmounting a social barrier as thorny as any in early twentieth-century Charleston. For the sake of her family, Mamba navigates a comic, calculated path to the privelged class of African-Americans employed by Charleston's aristocratic white families.

Set in the early twentieth-century, this classic novel transcends racial boundaries by intertwining the stories of three very different families in an amusing plot of deception, ambition, and social transformation.

A new introduction by Don H. Doyle places Mamba's Daughters in its historical context and suggests that in the novel, Heyward challenges the harsh, unjust aspects of Southern race relations.

Author Biography

One of the foremost literary figures of the early twentieth-century, DuBose Heyward (1885-1940) is best known for his novel Porgy, from which George Gershwin created the popular opera Porgy and Bess.