In The Quest of the Silver Fleece there is little, I ween, divine or ingenious; but, at least, I have been honest. In no fact or picture have I consciously set down aught the counterpart of which I have not seen or known; and whatever the finished picture may lack of completeness, this lack is due now to the story-teller, now to the artist, but never to the herald of the Truth.

—Author’s Note from The Quest of the Silver Fleece

W. E. B. Du Bois considered his first novel, The Quest of the Silver Fleece, to be an “economic study” of the post-Reconstruction relationship between the North and the South, but this first foray into fiction proves itself to be much more than that. Filled with literary realism, social commentary, and romance, Silver Fleece chronicles the love story between Zora, a free-spirited Black girl from a Southern swamp, and Bles, a Black man educated in the North. The couple must find a way to unite and overcome the racist Alabama town in which they live and, through working with the titular silver fleece (cotton), create an economic community that would help the rural Black community become self-sufficient.

Controversial and provocative at the time of its publication, Du Bois’s debut novel is a cutting and thorough examination, and condemnation, of America’s views on race both at the time of the novel’s publication and the time in which it is set. As a sociologist and civil-rights leader, Du Bois was uniquely positioned to bring the themes of racism, prejudice, and racial equality found in The Souls of Black Folk, which he had published just before Silver Fleece, to a larger audience that had not read his nonfiction titles.

The Quest of the Silver Fleece is a rousing and beautiful work of fiction from one of America’s most important intellects, and it continues to inspire conversation and debate around systemic racism in America today.

Originally published in 1911.