Kate Chopin’s Desiree’s Baby, written during the same era as Chesnutt’s works, also explores the theme of racial miscegenation. Desiree, an adopted daughter of a reputable Louisiana family, marries the heir of another plantation family. Their happiness is shattered when Desiree gives birth to a son with features indicating African-American ancestry.

Mark Twain’s 1894 novel Pudd’nhead Wilson delves into miscegenation in the pre-Civil War South. A light-skinned slave secretly switches her baby with her white owner’s baby, leading to unanticipated consequences for the household. The novel is known for its dark humor and contemplation on racism.

Charles Chesnutt’s story ‘‘The Wife of His Youth’’ (1899) investigates color biases among middle-class northern African Americans. The Blue Blood society, consisting of light-skinned African Americans, distances itself from darker-skinned individuals until an outsider disrupts their insular world.

Zora Neale Hurston’s second novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), received both critical acclaim and controversy. Hurston’s poetic prose, influenced by African-American folklore, narrates the journey of a woman discovering her self-reliance and identity.

A Lesson Before Dying is a poignant novel by Ernest J. Gaines. The story follows a young African-American teacher who reluctantly forms a bond with an illiterate African American sentenced to death for a crime he may not have committed. The teacher imparts a sense of self-worth to the condemned man and gains insight into himself.

Albert French’s novel Billy portrays the lynching of a young African-American boy in the rural South. Written in dialect, it provides a realistic and harrowing depiction of this brutal crime.

Cane (1923), an experimental novel by Jean Toomer, captures the African-American experience in the United States. The novel features a mix of literary forms, including poems and short stories, and draws on the rural South’s history and African-American folklore.

Richard Wright’s novel Native Son (1940) explores the oppression of African Americans by white society. It centers on a man imprisoned for two murders—one accidental and one intentional—who contemplates how African Americans can resist subjugation by white society.