Country Place by Ann Petry (1947) came on the heels of the massive success of her first novel, The Street, published just the year before. The Street was groundbreaking, becoming the first novel by an African-American woman to sell more than a million copies. It would eventually sell more than a million and a half, and was reissued in a new edition in 1992.

Born Ann Lane (1908 – 1997), she was was raised in Old Saybrook, Connecticut and was shielded from the very worse effects of racism in early 20th-century America. In 1938, she married George Petry, and the couple moved to Harlem. There she began a writing career in earnest, working as a journalist, columnist, and editor. Read More→