The invention of wings
(Large Print)

"Thorndike Press large print basic"--T.p. verso.

"The text of this Large Print edition is unabridged"--T.p. verso.

Includes bibliographical references.

Hetty "Handful" Grimke, a Charleston slave in early nineteehth-century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke's daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women. The novel begins on Sarah's eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership over ten-year-old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. "The Invention of Wings" follows the next thirty-five years of their lives. Inspired in part by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke (a feminist, suffragist and, importantly, an abolitionist), Kidd allows herself to go beyond the record to flesh out the inner lives of all the characters, both real and imagined.