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Abortion Stories

American Literature Before Roe v. Wade

Foreword by Rebecca Traister
Introduction by Karen Weingarten
Edited by Karen Weingarten
Afterword by Renee Bracey Sherman
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$18.00 US
Penguin Adult HC/TR | Penguin Classics
On sale Mar 04, 2025 | 240 Pages | 9780143138204
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A one-of-a-kind, intersectional volume of abortion representation in American literature before Roe v. Wade that compellingly proclaims: when abortion is illegal, women’s lives are always more precarious and limited

A Penguin Classic

One of Ms. Magazine’s Most Anticipated Feminist Books of 2025

Abortion Stories is the first volume of its kind to bring together a diverse collection of writings on abortion published before 1973, when Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in every American state. These stories, poems, essays, and memoirs reflect a range of representations and responses to abortion during this era, but when read together, they demonstrate how when abortion is illegal, women’s lives are always more precarious and limited. In this volume, you will read stories that will elucidate and enrich a view of abortion as one element of human experience—woven into stories of love and death and medicine and motherhood and enslavement and emancipation. Featuring luminaries like Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Edgar Allan Poe, Lucile Clifton, Eugene O' Neill, and Shirley Chisholm, as well as rare firsthand accounts of abortion providers and seekers, this reproductive justice-minded collection brings together diverse representations of abortion to show how access to abortion is often race and class dependent, and demonstrates how the repercussions of an illegal abortion also vary depending on such factors. The need and desire to have an abortion goes back centuries, and these literary representations of abortion before Roe compellingly argue for the necessity of legal and accessible abortion. Edited and introduced by Karen Weingarten, Abortion Stories features a foreword by Rebecca Traister and an afterword by Renee Bracey Sherman.
Foreword by Rebecca Traister
Introduction: A Short History of Abortion and Its Representations Before Roe by Karen Weingarten
A Note on the Text

ABORTION STORIES

Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium by Maria Sibylla Merian (1705), translated by Wijnie de Groot for this collection
“The Mystery of Marie Rogêt: A Sequel to ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’” by Edgar Allan Poe (1845)
WPA Oral Histories by Formerly Enslaved People (reminiscences of life during the mid-nineteenth century)
“The Great ‘Trunk Mystery’ of New York City” by Anonymous (1871)
The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett (1896)
Abortion by Eugene O’Neill (1914)
Summer by Edith Wharton (1917)
“Motherhood” by Georgia Douglas Johnson (1922)
“Engaged” by Genevieve Taggard (1922)
“Mr. Durant” by Dorothy Parker (1924)
Daughter of Earth by Agnes Smedley (1929)
“Missis Flinders” by Tess Slesinger (1932)
“Cora Unashamed” by Langston Hughes (1934)
“A Cold Front” by William Carlos Williams (1939)
“the mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks (1945)
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious (1956)
The Abortionist by Dr. X as told to Lucy Freeman (1962)
“One Woman’s Abortion” by Mrs. X (1965)
“Facing the Abortion Question” by Shirley Chisholm (1969)
They Weep on My Doorstep by Ruth Barnett (1969)
The Abortees’ Songbook by Patricia Maginnis (1969)
“the lost baby poem” by Lucille Clifton (1972)

Afterword by Renee Bracey Sherman
Acknowledgments
Suggestions for Further Reading
Credits

About

A one-of-a-kind, intersectional volume of abortion representation in American literature before Roe v. Wade that compellingly proclaims: when abortion is illegal, women’s lives are always more precarious and limited

A Penguin Classic

One of Ms. Magazine’s Most Anticipated Feminist Books of 2025

Abortion Stories is the first volume of its kind to bring together a diverse collection of writings on abortion published before 1973, when Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in every American state. These stories, poems, essays, and memoirs reflect a range of representations and responses to abortion during this era, but when read together, they demonstrate how when abortion is illegal, women’s lives are always more precarious and limited. In this volume, you will read stories that will elucidate and enrich a view of abortion as one element of human experience—woven into stories of love and death and medicine and motherhood and enslavement and emancipation. Featuring luminaries like Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Edgar Allan Poe, Lucile Clifton, Eugene O' Neill, and Shirley Chisholm, as well as rare firsthand accounts of abortion providers and seekers, this reproductive justice-minded collection brings together diverse representations of abortion to show how access to abortion is often race and class dependent, and demonstrates how the repercussions of an illegal abortion also vary depending on such factors. The need and desire to have an abortion goes back centuries, and these literary representations of abortion before Roe compellingly argue for the necessity of legal and accessible abortion. Edited and introduced by Karen Weingarten, Abortion Stories features a foreword by Rebecca Traister and an afterword by Renee Bracey Sherman.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Rebecca Traister
Introduction: A Short History of Abortion and Its Representations Before Roe by Karen Weingarten
A Note on the Text

ABORTION STORIES

Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium by Maria Sibylla Merian (1705), translated by Wijnie de Groot for this collection
“The Mystery of Marie Rogêt: A Sequel to ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’” by Edgar Allan Poe (1845)
WPA Oral Histories by Formerly Enslaved People (reminiscences of life during the mid-nineteenth century)
“The Great ‘Trunk Mystery’ of New York City” by Anonymous (1871)
The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett (1896)
Abortion by Eugene O’Neill (1914)
Summer by Edith Wharton (1917)
“Motherhood” by Georgia Douglas Johnson (1922)
“Engaged” by Genevieve Taggard (1922)
“Mr. Durant” by Dorothy Parker (1924)
Daughter of Earth by Agnes Smedley (1929)
“Missis Flinders” by Tess Slesinger (1932)
“Cora Unashamed” by Langston Hughes (1934)
“A Cold Front” by William Carlos Williams (1939)
“the mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks (1945)
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious (1956)
The Abortionist by Dr. X as told to Lucy Freeman (1962)
“One Woman’s Abortion” by Mrs. X (1965)
“Facing the Abortion Question” by Shirley Chisholm (1969)
They Weep on My Doorstep by Ruth Barnett (1969)
The Abortees’ Songbook by Patricia Maginnis (1969)
“the lost baby poem” by Lucille Clifton (1972)

Afterword by Renee Bracey Sherman
Acknowledgments
Suggestions for Further Reading
Credits

Additional formats

  • Abortion Stories
    Abortion Stories
    American Literature Before Roe v. Wade
    9780593512340
    Ebook
    Penguin Classics
    Mar 04, 2025
  • Abortion Stories
    Abortion Stories
    American Literature Before Roe v. Wade
    9780593512340
    Ebook
    Penguin Classics
    Mar 04, 2025

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