Penguin Vitae Series 5-Book Box Set The Awakening and Selected Stories; Before Night Falls; Passing; Sister Outsider; The Yellow Wall-Paper and Selected Writings

A beautiful boxed set of the inaugural five Penguin Vitae titles
 
WINNER OF AIGA 50 BOOKS | 50 COVERS OF 2020
 

Penguin Classics launches a new hardcover series with five American
classics that are relevant and timeless in their power, and part of a dynamic
and diverse landscape of classic fiction and nonfiction from almost seventy-five
years of classics publishing. Penguin Vitae provides readers with beautifully
designed classics that have shaped the course of their lives, and welcomes new
readers to discover these literary gifts of personal inspiration, intellectual
engagement, and creative originality. This boxed set contains the inaugural five titles in the series: The Awakening and Selected Stories by Kate Chopin, Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas, Passing by Nella Larsen, Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde, and The Yellow Wall-Paper and Selected Writings by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Reinaldo Arenas was born in Cuba in 1943. In 1980, he was one of 120,000 Cubans who arrived in the United States on the Mariel boatlift. Arenas settled in New York where he lived until his death from AIDS ten years later.

Kate Chopin (1851-1904) did not write until she was thirty-six years old. Her first novel, At Fault (1890), had difficulty finding a publisher, so she brought it out at her own expense. The Awakening, now her best-known work, appeared in 1899.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) was born in New England, a descendant of the prominent and influential Beecher family. In 1892, she published the now-famous story "The Yellow Wall-Paper." In 1898, her most famous nonfiction book, Women and Economics, was published.

Nella Larsen, one of the most acclaimed and influential writers of the Harlem Renaissance, was born Nellie Walker on April 13, 1891, in Chicago. She began publishing stories in the mid-1920s and published her first novel, Quicksand, in 1928. Passing came out the following year.

Audre Lorde (1934-1992) published nine volumes of poetry and five works of prose. She was a recipient of many distinguished honors and awards, including honorary doctorates from Hunter, Oberlin, and Haverford Colleges, and was named New York State Poet (1991-1993).