Author Guide · Harlem Renaissance Fiction
Books Written by
Nella Larsen was born Nellie Walker in Chicago in 1891, the daughter of a white Danish mother and a Black father from the Danish West Indies. She trained as a nurse at Lincoln Hospital in New York, became the first Black woman to graduate from the New York Public Library’s library school, and worked at the 135th Street branch in Harlem. In two years she published two novels with Alfred A. Knopf, Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929), and in 1930 she became the first Black woman to win a Guggenheim Fellowship. Then she stopped publishing, went back to nursing, and died in Brooklyn in 1964 almost forgotten. This guide covers her three books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 3 key books · 1928–1992 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Nella Larsen published two novels in her lifetime: Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929), plus a handful of short stories. Both novels and three stories are collected in An Intimation of Things Distant (1992). Start with Passing, a short novel about two women who grew up together in Chicago, one of whom now lives as white; it was filmed by Rebecca Hall in 2021.
Where to Start with Nella Larsen
If you want her most famous book
→ Passing (1929) — short, tense and filmed in 2021.
If you want the fuller, more autobiographical novel
→ Quicksand (1928) — one woman’s search from Alabama to Copenhagen.
If you want everything she published as fiction
→ An Intimation of Things Distant (1992) — both novels and the short stories in one volume.
Nella Larsen’s 3 Books, in Order
Quicksand
Helga Crane, the daughter of a Danish mother and a Black father, quits her teaching job at Naxos, a Black school in the South, and moves through Chicago, Harlem and Copenhagen without feeling at home in any of them. She ends up married to a preacher in rural Alabama, worn down by repeated childbirth. The novel draws on Larsen’s own life and won her the Harmon Foundation’s bronze award for literature.
Passing
Irene Redfield, a doctor’s wife in Harlem, runs into her childhood friend Clare Kendry in a Chicago hotel and learns that Clare has been passing as white and is married to a white man who despises Black people. Clare starts coming to Harlem, and Irene’s unease about her grows into suspicion. The book ends with Clare’s fall from a window, which Larsen leaves deliberately unexplained. Rebecca Hall adapted it as a black-and-white film in 2021, with Tessa Thompson as Irene and Ruth Negga as Clare.
An Intimation of Things Distant
Published by Anchor Books almost thirty years after her death, this volume brings together both novels and three short stories: “The Wrong Man” and “Freedom”, which she published in 1926 under the name Allen Semi, and “Sanctuary” (1930), the story that led to the plagiarism accusation.
In What Order to Read Nella Larsen
With two novels, order hardly matters. Passing is the shorter and tighter of the two and the one most people know, so it is the natural first book; Quicksand covers more ground, across three cities and two continents, and is the closer to her own life.
Reading them in publication order shows how she narrowed her focus: from one woman’s wandering search in Quicksand to a few charged encounters between two women in Passing. The short stories are slighter and best read last.
A reading path
1. Passing (1929)
2. Quicksand (1928)
3. “Sanctuary” and the other stories, in An Intimation of Things Distant (1992)
Everything Else Nella Larsen Published
Beyond the 3 key books: 6 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Short stories and early pieces
5
5 books · 1920–1930
- 1920Three Scandinavian Gamesa children’s piece in The Brownies’ Book, as Nella Larsen Imes
- 1920Danish Funa children’s piece in The Brownies’ Book
- 1926The Wrong Manshort story, Young’s Magazine, as Allen Semi
- 1926Freedomshort story, Young’s Magazine, as Allen Semi
- 1930Sanctuaryshort story, Forum
Later editions
1
1 book · 2001
- 2001The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsenthe novels and stories in one Anchor volume
The years · 1891–1964
Quick facts about Nella Larsen
- Known for
- Nella Larsen is known as one of the leading novelists of the Harlem Renaissance, who wrote about mixed-race women, the colour line and passing in two short novels of 1928 and 1929.
- 1891
- Born Nellie Walker in Chicago
- 1929
- Passing
- 1930
- First Black woman to win a Guggenheim
- 1964
- Dies in Brooklyn, aged 72
- Born
- 13 April 1891, Chicago, as Nellie Walker
- Died
- 30 March 1964, Brooklyn, New York
- Training
- Nursing, Lincoln Hospital (1915); New York Public Library school (1923)
- Married
- The physicist Elmer Imes, in 1919; they divorced in the 1930s
- Honours
- Harmon Foundation bronze award for Quicksand; Guggenheim Fellowship (1930)
- Publisher
- Alfred A. Knopf, for both novels
The red mark is 1929: Passing, her second and best-known novel.
How Nella Larsen Writes: Two Women at the Colour Line
Both novels stay close to one woman’s mind. Quicksand follows Helga Crane through every move and mood; Passing is told entirely from Irene Redfield’s point of view, so the reader only sees Clare through Irene’s envy, fear and fascination, and has to judge how far to trust her.
Her subject is the colour line as lived by middle-class women who could cross it: what it costs to belong to a race, a class or a marriage, and what it costs to leave. She sets each book against a poem from the Harlem Renaissance — Langston Hughes’s “Cross” for Quicksand, Countee Cullen’s “Heritage” for Passing — and works through scenes of tea parties, dances and hotel rooftops rather than open conflict.
She is economical and withholds explanations. Passing runs to novella length, and its ending, Clare’s fall from a window, never says whether it was an accident, suicide or a push. Since the 1980s critics have also read Irene’s obsession with Clare as desire, which is one reason the book is still argued over.
Frequently asked questions about Nella Larsen’s books
How many books has Nella Larsen written?
Two in her lifetime: the novels Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929). She also published a few short stories, which were collected with both novels after her death in An Intimation of Things Distant (1992), the third book on this page.
What are Nella Larsen’s books in order?
Quicksand (1928), Passing (1929) and, posthumously, An Intimation of Things Distant: The Collected Fiction of Nella Larsen (1992). The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen followed in 2001.
Where should I start with Nella Larsen?
Passing. It is short, it is her best-known book, and the 2021 film makes a good companion. Read Quicksand next for a fuller, more autobiographical portrait.
What is Nella Larsen’s most famous book?
Passing (1929), about Irene Redfield and her childhood friend Clare Kendry, who lives as a white woman married to a racist white man.
Was Nella Larsen accused of plagiarism?
Yes. In January 1930 the magazine Forum published her story “Sanctuary”, and readers soon pointed out that its plot closely resembled “Mrs. Adis”, an earlier story by the English novelist Sheila Kaye-Smith. Larsen said the tale had been told to her by a patient when she was a nurse and was a kind of Black folk story with many versions. Forum’s editors examined her drafts and accepted that the resemblance was a coincidence. It was the last fiction she published.
Has Passing been made into a film?
Yes. Rebecca Hall wrote and directed Passing (2021), shot in black and white, with Tessa Thompson as Irene and Ruth Negga as Clare. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was released on Netflix in November 2021.
Is Quicksand autobiographical?
In part. Like Larsen, Helga Crane is the daughter of a Danish mother and a Black father, works at a Black school in the South, lives in Harlem and spends time with relatives in Denmark. The marriage and ending are fiction.
Why did Nella Larsen stop writing?
After the plagiarism accusation she still won a Guggenheim Fellowship and travelled to Europe, but the novels she worked on in the early 1930s were never published. Her marriage ended in divorce, and she returned to nursing in New York, where she worked until 1963.
Is Nella Larsen part of the Harlem Renaissance?
Yes. She lived and worked in Harlem in the 1920s, and her two novels are counted among the key fiction of the movement, alongside the work of writers such as Jessie Fauset and Zora Neale Hurston.
Footnotes
- Nella Larsen, author of Passing and Quicksand — Literary Ladies Guide
- The plagiarism scandal that ended Nella Larsen’s career — JSTOR Daily
- Flashback: the callings of Nella Larsen — UVA School of Nursing
- Review of Passing (2021) — NPR
- Passing, Knopf 1929 first edition — Internet Archive
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“It was the last letter in Irene Redfield’s little pile of morning mail.”
— Nella Larsen, Passing (1929), the first line
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