Ramona

by Helen Hunt Jackson, Michael Dorris (Introduction), Valerie Sherer Mathes (Afterword)

Overview

One of the greatest ethical novels of the nineteenth century, Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona is a tale of true love tested.

Set in Old California, this powerful narrative richly depicts the life of the fading Spanish order, the oppression of tribal American communities and inevitably, the brutal intrusion of white settlers. Ramona, an illegitimate orphan, grows up as the ward of the overbearing Senora Moreno. But her desire for Alessandro, a Native American, makes her an outcast and fugitive...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780451528421
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/01/2002
Series:	Signet Classics
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	345,446
Product dimensions:	4.20(w) x 6.70(h) x 1.07(d)
Lexile:	870L (what's this?)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Helen Hunt Jackson (1830–1885) was a poet, novelist and essayist who became an advocate for Native American rights, fighting for improved treatment of Natives by the US government. She detailed the adverse effects of previous actions taken against Indian tribes in her history A Century of Dishonor (1881). Her novel Ramona (1884) dramatized the federal government's mistreatment of Native Americans in Southern California after the Mexican–American War and attracted considerable attention to her cause.

Read an Excerpt

I. It was sheep-shearing time in Southern California; but sheep-shearing was late at the Señora Moreno’s. The Fates had seemed to combine to put it off. In the first place, Felipe Moreno had been ill. He was the Señora’s eldest son, and since his father’s death had been at the head of his mother’s house. Without him, nothing could be done on the ranch, the Señora thought. It had been always, “Ask Señor Felipe,” “Go to Señor Felipe,” “Señor Felipe will attend to it,” ever since Felipe had had the dawning of a beard on his handsome face.
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Ramona"
by .
Copyright © 2002 Helen Hunt Jackson.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

Ramona is a second Uncle Tom’s Cabin. . . . The arrogant mestiza whose attachment to her Indian lover endures through persecution and death . . . and the desperate love they share until the vanquishing blond race casts them out like hunted animals . . . all this is alive in these pages.”
–José Martí

From the Publisher