Ralph Ellison Popular Books

Ralph Ellison Biography & Facts

Ralph Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994) was an American writer, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953.Ellison wrote Shadow and Act (1964), a collection of political, social, and critical essays, and Going to the Territory (1986). The New York Times dubbed him "among the gods of America's literary Parnassus".A posthumous novel, Juneteenth, was published after being assembled from voluminous notes Ellison left upon his death. Early life Ralph Waldo Ellison, named after Ralph Waldo Emerson, was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to Lewis Alfred Ellison and Ida Millsap, on March 1, 1913. He was the second of three sons; firstborn Alfred died in infancy, and younger brother Herbert Maurice (or Millsap) was born in 1916. Lewis Alfred Ellison, a small-business owner and a construction foreman, died in 1916, after work-related injury and a failed operation. The elder Ellison loved literature, and doted on his children. Ralph later discovered, as an adult, that his father had hoped he would grow up to be a poet. In 1921, Ellison's mother and her children moved to Gary, Indiana, where she had a brother. According to Ellison, his mother felt that "my brother and I would have a better chance of reaching manhood if we grew up in the north." When she did not find a job and her brother lost his, the family returned to Oklahoma, where Ellison worked as a busboy, a shoeshine boy, hotel waiter, and a dentist's assistant. From the father of a neighborhood friend, he received free lessons for playing trumpet and alto saxophone, and would go on to become the school bandmaster.Ida remarried three times after Lewis died. However, the family life was precarious, and Ralph worked various jobs during his youth and teens to assist with family support. While attending Douglass High School, he also found time to play on the school's football team. He graduated from high school in 1931. He worked for a year, and found the money to make a down payment on a trumpet, using it to play with local musicians, and to take further music lessons. At Douglass, he was influenced by principal Inman E. Page and his daughter, music teacher Zelia N. Breaux. At Tuskegee Institute Ellison applied twice for admission to Tuskegee Institute, the prestigious all-black university in Alabama founded by Booker T. Washington. He was finally admitted in 1933 for lack of a trumpet player in its orchestra. Ellison hopped freight trains to get to Alabama, and was soon to find out that the institution was no less class-conscious than white institutions generally were.Ellison's outsider position at Tuskegee "sharpened his satirical lens," critic Hilton Als believes: "Standing apart from the university's air of sanctimonious Negritude enabled him to write about it." In passages of Invisible Man, "he looks back with scorn and despair on the snivelling ethos that ruled at Tuskegee."Tuskegee's music department was perhaps the most renowned department at the school, headed by composer William L. Dawson. Ellison also was guided by the department's piano instructor, Hazel Harrison. While he studied music primarily in his classes, he spent his free time in the library with modernist classics. He cited reading T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land as a major awakening moment. In 1934, he began to work as a desk clerk at the university library, where he read James Joyce and Gertrude Stein. Librarian Walter Bowie Williams enthusiastically let Ellison share in his knowledge.A major influence upon Ellison was English teacher Morteza Drexel Sprague, to whom Ellison later dedicated his essay collection Shadow and Act. He opened Ellison's eyes to "the possibilities of literature as a living art" and to "the glamour he would always associate with the literary life." Through Sprague, Ellison became familiar with Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure, identifying with the "brilliant, tortured anti-heroes" of those works.As a child, Ellison evidenced what would become a lifelong interest in audio technology, starting by taking apart and rebuilding radios, and later moving on to constructing and customizing elaborate hi-fi stereo systems as an adult. He discussed this passion in a December 1955 essay, "Living With Music", in High Fidelity magazine. Ellison scholar John S. Wright contends that this deftness with the ins-and-outs of electronic devices went on to inform Ellison's approach to writing and the novel form. Ellison remained at Tuskegee until 1936, and decided to leave before completing the requirements for a degree. In New York Desiring to study sculpture, he moved to New York City on July 5, 1936, and found lodging at a YMCA on 135th Street in Harlem, then "the culture capital of black America". He met Langston Hughes, "Harlem's unofficial diplomat" of the Depression era, and one—as one of the country's celebrity black authors—who could live from his writing. Hughes introduced him to the black literary establishment with Communist sympathies.He met several artists who would influence his later life, including the artist Romare Bearden and the author Richard Wright (with whom he would have a long and complicated relationship). After Ellison wrote a book review for Wright, Wright encouraged him to write fiction as a career. His first published story was "Hymie's Bull", inspired by Ellison's 1933 hoboing on a train with his uncle to get to Tuskegee. From 1937 to 1944, Ellison had over 20 book reviews, as well as short stories and articles, published in magazines such as New Challenge and The New Masses. Wright was then openly associated with the Communist Party, and Ellison was publishing and editing for communist publications, although his "affiliation was quieter", according to historian Carol Polsgrove in Divided Minds. Both Wright and Ellison lost their faith in the Communist Party during World War II, when they felt the party had betrayed African Americans and replaced Marxist class politics with social reformism. In a letter to Wright, dated August 18, 1945, Ellison poured out his anger with party leaders: "If they want to play ball with the bourgeoisie they needn't think they can get away with it. ... Maybe we can't smash the atom, but we can, with a few well chosen, well written words, smash all that crummy filth to hell." In the wake of this disillusion, Ellison began writing Invisible Man, a novel that was, in part, his response to the party's betrayal.: 66–69  In 1938, Ellison met Rose Araminta Poindexter, a woman two years his senior. Rose Araminta Poindexter was an actress, starring in films such as The Upright Sinner (1931). Poindexter and Ellison were married in late 1938. Rose was a stage actress, and continued her career after their marriage. In biographer Arnold Rampersad's assessment of Ellison's taste in women, he was searching for one "physically attractive and smart who would love, honor, and obey him—but not.... Discover the Ralph Ellison popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Ralph Ellison books.

Best Seller Ralph Ellison Books of 2024

  • Narrative of the Life of J. D. Green synopsis, comments

    Narrative of the Life of J. D. Green

    Jacob D. Green

    This eBook edition of "Narrative of the Life of J. D. Green" has been formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. "Narrative...

  • The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison synopsis, comments

    The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison

    Ralph Ellison, John F. Callahan & Saul Bellow

    Compiled, edited, and newly revised by Ralph Ellison’s literary executor, John F. Callahan, this Modern Library Paperback Classic includes posthumously discovered reviews, criticis...

  • Hue and Cry synopsis, comments

    Hue and Cry

    James Alan McPherson

    The classic debut collection from Pulitzer Prize winner James Alan McPhersonHue and Cry is the remarkably mature and agile debut story collection from James Alan McPherson, on...

  • Ralph Eugene Ellison v. State synopsis, comments

    Ralph Eugene Ellison v. State

    Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas No. 24988

    Appellant for the first time now urges that the trial court inadvertently in his charge changed the offense for which appellant was being tried from an assault with int...

  • The Letters of Shirley Jackson synopsis, comments

    The Letters of Shirley Jackson

    Shirley Jackson, Laurence Jackson Hyman & Bernice M. Murphy

    A bewitchingly brilliant collection of neverbeforepublished letters from the renowned author of “The Lottery” and The Haunting of Hill HouseNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR ...

  • Insurrections of the Mind synopsis, comments

    Insurrections of the Mind

    Franklin Foer

    To commemorate the 100th anniversary of The New Republic, an extraordinary anthology of essays culled from the archives of the acclaimed and influential magazineFounded by Herbert ...

  • Invisible Man synopsis, comments

    Invisible Man

    Ralph Ellison

    NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER  NATIONAL BESTSELLER In this deeply compelling novel and epic milestone of American literature, a nameless narrator tells his story from ...

  • Dreamer synopsis, comments

    Dreamer

    Charles Johnson

    From the National Book Awardwinning author of Middle Passage, a fearless fictional portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his pivotal moment in American history.Set against the...

  • Invisible Criticism synopsis, comments

    Invisible Criticism

    Alan Nadel

    In 1952 Ralph Ellison won the National Book Award for his Kafkaesque and claustrophobic novel about the life of a nameless young black man in New York City. Although Invisible Ma...

  • The Life of Saul Bellow synopsis, comments

    The Life of Saul Bellow

    Zachary Leader

    When this second volume of The Life of Saul Bellow opens, Bellow, at fortynine, is at the pinnacle of American letters rich, famous, critically acclaimed. The expected trajectory ...

  • The Underground Railroad synopsis, comments

    The Underground Railroad

    William Still

    "The Underground Railroad" chronicles the stories and methods of some 649 slaves who escaped to freedom via the Underground Railroad. Author, William Still included his car...

  • Faith and the Good Thing synopsis, comments

    Faith and the Good Thing

    Charles Johnson

    Faith Cross, a beautiful and purely innocent young black woman, is told by her dying mother to go and get herself "a good thing." Thus begins an extraordinary pilgrim's progress th...

  • Ralph Ellison in Progress synopsis, comments

    Ralph Ellison in Progress

    Adam Bradley

    Ralph Ellison may be the preeminent AfricanAmerican author of the twentieth century, though he published only one novel, 1952’s Invisible Man. He enjoyed a highly successful career...

  • Ralph Ellison v. Bunker Hill Company synopsis, comments

    Ralph Ellison v. Bunker Hill Company

    Supreme Court of Idaho No. 11933

    Per Curiam. This is an appeal from a denial of workmen's compensation benefits by the Industrial Commission. We affirm. This case was previously before the Court, 96 Idaho 317, 528...

  • Three Japanese Short Stories synopsis, comments

    Three Japanese Short Stories

    Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Kafu Nagai & Chiyo Uno

    'Oh the cruelty of time, that destroys all things!'Beguiling, strange and hairraising tales from early 20th century Japan: Nagai's Behind the Prison, Uno's Closet LLB and Akutagawa...

  • Ralph Ellison - Invisible Man synopsis, comments

    Ralph Ellison - Invisible Man

    Anke Balduf

    The Quest · can be defined as a voyage with a goal, a “Suchwanderung”. · the goal is usually a treasured item or one’s own soul. · 3 major parts: the departure, the voyage with ...

  • Twenty-Two Years a Slave and Forty Years a Freeman synopsis, comments

    Twenty-Two Years a Slave and Forty Years a Freeman

    Austin Steward

    "TwentyTwo Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman" is a slave narrative, detailing Austin Steward's early life of enslavement and escape, as well as his years of free...

  • Ralph Ellison and Kenneth Burke synopsis, comments

    Ralph Ellison and Kenneth Burke

    Bryan Crable

    Ralph Ellison and Kenneth Burke focuses on the littleknown but important friendship between two canonical American writers. The story of this fiftyyear friendship, however, is more...

  • Shadow and Act synopsis, comments

    Shadow and Act

    Ralph Ellison

    With the same intellectual incisiveness and supple, stylish prose he brought to his classic novel Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison examines his antecedents and in so doing illuminates ...

  • Modern American Memoirs synopsis, comments

    Modern American Memoirs

    Annie Dillard

    "[In] this anthology of wellchosen excerpts by a satisfyingly diverse group of writers....the truth of their lives shines from every beautifully, often courageously composed page."...

  • Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton Kingdom synopsis, comments

    Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton Kingdom

    Frederick Law Olmsted

    "My own observation of the real condition of the people of our Slave States, gave me ... an impression that the cotton monopoly in some way did them more harm than good; and al...

  • Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl synopsis, comments

    Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

    Harriet Jacobs

    "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" is an autobiography by a young mother and fugitive slave Harriet Ann Jacobs. Jacobs contributed to the genre of slave narrative by u...

  • Night Hawks synopsis, comments

    Night Hawks

    Charles Johnson

    From National Book Award winner Charles Johnson, “the celebrated novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, and essayist…comes a small treasure, one to be read and considered and ...

  • Dead Famous synopsis, comments

    Dead Famous

    Ben Elton

    "Wry, fast and fiendishly clever" (The Times)One house. Ten contestants. Thirty cameras. Forty microphones.Yet again the public gorges its voyeuristic appetite as another group of ...

  • Juneteenth synopsis, comments

    Juneteenth

    Ralph Ellison & Charles Johnson

    “Ellison sought no less than to create a Book of Blackness, a literary composition of the tradition at its most sublime and fundamental." Henry Louis Gates, Jr., TIME From the reno...

  • Ralph Ellison synopsis, comments

    Ralph Ellison

    Arnold Rampersad

    Ralph Ellison is justly celebrated for his epochal novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953 and has become a classic of American literature. But Ellison’s str...

  • The Cambridge Companion to Ralph Ellison synopsis, comments

    The Cambridge Companion to Ralph Ellison

    Ross Posnock

    Ralph Ellison's classic 1952 novel Invisible Man is one of the most important and controversial novels in the American canon and remains widely read and studied. This Companion pro...

  • Ralph Ellison and the Genius of America synopsis, comments

    Ralph Ellison and the Genius of America

    Timothy Parrish

    Ralph Ellison has long been admired as the author of one of the most important American novels of the twentieth century, Invisible Man. Yet he has also been dismissed by some criti...

  • Voices in Our Blood synopsis, comments

    Voices in Our Blood

    Jon Meacham, Maya Angelou, Ralph Ellison, Alice Walker & James Baldwin

    A literary anthology of important and artful interpretations of the civil rights movement and the fight against white supremacy, past and presentincluding pieces by Maya Angel...

  • How Lovely the Ruins synopsis, comments

    How Lovely the Ruins

    Annie Chagnot & Emi Ikkanda

    This wideranging collection of inspirational poetry and prose offers readers solace, perspective, and the courage to persevere.In times of personal hardship or collective anxiety, ...

  • Ralph Ellison, Temporal Technologist synopsis, comments

    Ralph Ellison, Temporal Technologist

    Michael Germana

    Ralph Ellison, Temporal Technologist examines Ralph Ellison's body of work as an extended and everevolving expression of the author's philosophy of temporalitya philosophy synthesi...

  • Ralph Ellison synopsis, comments

    Ralph Ellison

    Shmoop

    "Dive deep into the story of Ralph Ellison's life anywhere you go: on a plane, on a mountain, in a canoe, under a tree. Or grab a flashlight and read Shmoop under the covers. Shmoo...

  • The Modern Library synopsis, comments

    The Modern Library

    Carmen Callil & Colm Toibin

    For Colm Toíbín and Carmen Callil there is no difference between literary and commercial writing there is only the good novel: engrossing, inspirational, compelling. In their sele...

  • Letters from Black America synopsis, comments

    Letters from Black America

    Pamela Newkirk

    Letters from Black America fills a literary and historical void by presenting the pantheon of African American experience in the most intimate way possiblethrough the heartfelt cor...

  • Ralph Ellison and the Raft of Hope synopsis, comments

    Ralph Ellison and the Raft of Hope

    Lucas E. Morel

    “This superb [essay] collection enables readers of Invisible Man to appreciate the subtleties of its cultural and political commentary.” Journal of American StudiesAn important col...

  • Middle Passage synopsis, comments

    Middle Passage

    Charles Johnson

    A twentyfifth anniversary edition of Charles Johnson’s National Book Awardwinning masterpiece"a novel in the tradition of Billy Budd and MobyDick…heroic in proportion…fiction that ...

  • Race, Immigration, and American Identity in the Fiction of Salman Rushdie, Ralph Ellison, and William Faulkner synopsis, comments

    Race, Immigration, and American Identity in the Fiction of Salman Rushdie, Ralph Ellison, and William Faulkner

    Randy Boyagoda

    Salman Rushdie once observed that William Faulkner was the writer most frequently cited by third world authors as their major influence. Inspired by the unexpected lines of influen...

  • The Way of the Writer synopsis, comments

    The Way of the Writer

    Charles Johnson

    From Charles Johnsona National Book Award winner, Professor Emeritus at University of Washington, and one of America’s preeminent scholars on literature and racecomes an instructiv...