Originally published in 1912, this was one of the first books to present a frank picture of what it was like to be black and living in America in the early part of the 20th century. Masked in the tradition of a literary confession, this autobiography purports to be the candid account of its narrator's private views and feelings, as well as an acknowledgement of the central secret of his life: that though he lives as a white man, he is by heritage a black American.