Author Guide · Fiction
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Ann Petry, born in 1908 in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, trained as a pharmacist and worked in her family’s drugstore before she moved to Harlem in 1938 and became a reporter. In 1945 she won Houghton Mifflin’s Literary Fellowship, worth 2,400 dollars, for a novel in progress. That novel, The Street (1946), opens on 116th Street in a cold November wind and became the first novel by an African American woman to sell more than a million copies. She went on to write about small-town Connecticut, about Harriet Tubman and the Salem witch trials for young readers, and about the drugstores she grew up in. This guide covers her 8 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 8 key books · 1946–1971 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Ann Petry wrote three novels for adults, The Street (1946), Country Place (1947) and The Narrows (1953), a story collection, Miss Muriel and Other Stories (1971), and four books for young readers, including Harriet Tubman (1955) and Tituba of Salem Village (1964). Start with The Street, the Harlem novel that sold more than a million copies; then read The Narrows to see her return to Connecticut.
Where to Start with Ann Petry
If you want her defining book
→ The Street (1946) — the 1946 Harlem novel.
If you want her most ambitious novel
→ The Narrows (1953) — love and race in a Connecticut town.
If you want her short fiction
→ Miss Muriel and Other Stories (1971) — stories from the 1940s to 1971.
If you are buying for a young reader
→ Harriet Tubman (1955) — her biography of Harriet Tubman.
8 Ann Petry Books, in Order
The Street
Lutie Johnson, a single mother in 1940s Harlem, rents an apartment on 116th Street for herself and her eight-year-old son Bub, and tries to earn her way out by singing with Boots Smith’s band. The building’s superintendent, the bar owner Junto and the madam Mrs. Hedges all have designs on her. It was an instant bestseller and the first novel by an African American woman to sell more than a million copies.
Country Place
Her second novel moves from Harlem to Lennox, a small Connecticut town, and has mostly white characters. A violent autumn storm sweeps through the town and exposes what its inhabitants are really like, from disillusionment to petty corruption.
The Drugstore Cat
Buzzie, a plump grey Manx kitten with a stubby tail, leaves the barn where he was born to live in a drugstore run by the Jameses, a brother and sister who are pharmacists. After a run of mishaps he redeems himself by saving the store from burglars. Illustrated by Susanne Suba, it was reissued by Beacon Press in 1988.
The Narrows
Link Williams, an orphan with a Dartmouth degree, tends bar in the Narrows, the Black section of Monmouth, Connecticut, rather than join the Black middle class. His affair with Camilo Sheffield, a rich white heiress, sets the town against him. Critics faulted the melodrama of the plot but praised its style and its many characters; Library of America reprinted it with The Street in 2019.
Harriet Tubman
A biography for young readers of Harriet Tubman, who escaped slavery in Maryland and returned south to lead others to freedom on the Underground Railroad. In London it was published in 1960 as The Girl Called Moses.
Tituba of Salem Village
Tituba, an enslaved woman from Barbados, and her husband John are sold to the Reverend Samuel Parris and taken with his family to Salem Village. The stories she tells the village girls mix with local superstition, and when the girls start having fits she is among the first accused of witchcraft, beaten into a confession and jailed for more than a year. Written for readers aged ten and up, it was published by Thomas Y. Crowell.
Legends of the Saints
Her last book for children: stories of the lives of saints, retold for young readers.
Miss Muriel and Other Stories
Her collected short fiction. The semi-autobiographical title story is told by a twelve-year-old Black girl in a New England drugstore. “In Darkness and Confusion” follows a Harlem couple during the 1943 riot after their son is mistreated in the segregated army, and “Like a Winding Sheet” had already been chosen for The Best American Short Stories 1946.
In What Order to Read Ann Petry
None of Petry’s books continue from one another, so you can read them in any order. Publication order shows a clear movement, though: from the Harlem of The Street back to the Connecticut towns of Country Place and The Narrows, and from there to history written for children.
The easiest way in is the 2019 Library of America volume, which puts The Street and The Narrows in one book. Read Miss Muriel and Other Stories next: several of its stories date from the 1940s, when she was writing The Street.
A reading path
1. The Street (1946)
2. Miss Muriel and Other Stories (1971)
3. The Narrows (1953)
4. Country Place (1947)
5. Tituba of Salem Village (1964)
Collected Editions
Beyond the 8 key books: 1 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Collected edition
1
1 book · 2019
- 2019The Street, The NarrowsLibrary of America (LOA #314), edited by Farah Jasmine Griffin, with a few shorter nonfiction pieces
The years · 1908–1997
Quick facts about Ann Petry
- Known for
- Ann Petry is known for The Street (1946), her Harlem novel about a single mother, which was the first novel by an African American woman to sell more than a million copies.
- 1908
- Born in Old Saybrook, Connecticut
- 1946
- The Street
- 1997
- Dies in Old Saybrook, aged 88
- Born
- 12 October 1908, Old Saybrook, Connecticut, into a family of pharmacists
- Died
- 28 April 1997, Old Saybrook, Connecticut
- Education
- Pharmacy degree, University of Connecticut College of Pharmacy, 1931; later creative writing at Columbia University
- Journalism
- The Amsterdam News, then The People’s Voice in Harlem, 1941–1944
- Married
- George D. Petry, in 1938
- Breakthrough
- Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship, 1945, which led to The Street
The red mark is 1946: The Street, the first novel by an African American woman to sell more than a million copies.
How Ann Petry Writes: The Street and the Small Town
Petry wrote The Street out of what she saw as a reporter. From 1941 to 1944 she worked for The People’s Voice, Adam Clayton Powell Jr.’s Harlem paper, and did community work in the neighbourhood; her daughter later said writing the novel was her mother’s way of dealing with Harlem’s problems. The book stays on one block, and it shows how rent, low wages, harassment and racism close in on Lutie Johnson, a woman who believes in the self-improvement creed of Benjamin Franklin.
Her other subject was the place she came from. Britannica credits her with a “unique perspective on black life in small-town New England”: Country Place is set in a Connecticut town with mostly white characters, and The Narrows in the Black district of another one. Her years behind the counter of the family pharmacy turn up in The Drugstore Cat and in the title story of Miss Muriel.
In the 1950s and 1960s she turned to history for young readers, writing about Harriet Tubman and about Tituba, the enslaved woman from Barbados accused at the start of the Salem witch trials. In both books she puts Black women at the centre of stories usually told around them.
Frequently asked questions about Ann Petry’s books
How many books has Ann Petry written?
Eight: three novels for adults (The Street, Country Place and The Narrows), one short story collection (Miss Muriel and Other Stories) and four books for young readers. In 2019 the Library of America collected The Street and The Narrows in one volume.
What are Ann Petry’s books in order?
The Street (1946), Country Place (1947), The Drugstore Cat (1949), The Narrows (1953), Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad (1955), Tituba of Salem Village (1964), Legends of the Saints (1970) and Miss Muriel and Other Stories (1971).
Where should I start with Ann Petry?
With The Street (1946), her first and best-known novel. If you like it, the Library of America volume adds The Narrows (1953), her longest and most ambitious novel.
What is Ann Petry’s most famous book?
The Street (1946), about Lutie Johnson, a single mother trying to make a life for herself and her son on 116th Street in Harlem. It was the first novel by an African American woman to sell more than a million copies.
What happens at the end of The Street?
Spoiler: after her son Bub is arrested for stealing mail, Lutie needs money for a lawyer. When the bandleader Boots Smith makes a sexual advance, she kills him with a candlestick, takes money from his wallet and, knowing she cannot rescue her son, boards a train to Chicago.
Is The Street based on a true story?
No, it is fiction, but it comes directly from what Petry saw in Harlem in the late 1930s and early 1940s as a reporter for The Amsterdam News and The People’s Voice, and as a community worker in the neighbourhood.
Was Ann Petry a pharmacist?
Yes. She came from a family of pharmacists in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, earned her pharmacy degree in 1931 and worked in the family drugstore before moving to New York in 1938. The drugstore appears in The Drugstore Cat and in “Miss Muriel”.
Did Ann Petry write children’s books?
Yes, four: The Drugstore Cat (1949), Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad (1955), Tituba of Salem Village (1964), about the enslaved woman accused in the Salem witch trials, and Legends of the Saints (1970).
Is Ann Petry still alive?
No. She was born on 12 October 1908 in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, and died there on 28 April 1997, aged 88.
Footnotes
- Ann Petry — Wikipedia
- Ann Petry — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- The Street (novel) — Wikipedia
- Tituba of Salem Village — Wikipedia
- Ann Petry: The Street, The Narrows (LOA #314) — Penguin Random House
- Petry, Ann Lane — Encyclopedia.com
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.
“There was a cold November wind blowing through 116th Street.”
— Ann Petry, The Street (1946), the opening line
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