The Bastard Child is the long awaited autobiography by author Sean P. Hoggs. His gripping true-life story takes the reader from his abusive and turbulent childhood, through his struggles as a homeless teenager (in the violent inner city streets of Central New Jersey), to his incredible rise onto the national and international stage as an humanitarian and mentor. Each chapter is a remarkable, yet humble, testament to resiliency and perseverance. Regardless of age, race, socioeconomic background, start or station in life, his tragedy to triumph story is one for the ages. The Bastard Child is an uplifting American success story that goes far beyond your stereotypical "rags to riches" story shared today. If you ever hungered for an inspirational life story to help you overcome personal hardship or a challenge in life, this book is simply a must read. The Bastard Child..."To say that this book will change many lives is an understatement. I am forever changed since reading it. A book like this comes along once in a generation!" -Dione Lauray-Davis (Community Activist) The Bastard Child..."Once I picked the book up, I could not put it down. This autobiography is a must read, it's inspiring me to continue my education. I highly recommend this book for anyone who's having any kind of doubts about achieving their goals in life." -Terrence Bellamy (Youth Advocate and Retired Law Enforcement Officer) The Bastard Child..."Is a must read autobiography for any adult or at risk youth that is struggling with his or her direction in life." "Powerful...!" -Vernice Jackson (Mother, Washington D.C.)

"As the one child Joseph Jackson fathered out of wedlock, Joh'Vonnie experienced an oftentimes emotionally chaotic, under appreciated and uncelebrated life compared with those of her world famous kin, some of whom saw her very existence as a threat to their public image. As she grappled with her father's complicated legacy and forged her own path as a mother, poet, designer, and author, Joh'Vonnie came to understand her station in life and sense of value and worth equal in every way with this larger-than-life family"--from Back cover.

A profound portrait of family dynamics in the rural South and “an essential novel” (The New Yorker) “As close to flawless as any reader could ask for . . . The living language [Allison] has created is as exact and innovative as the language of To Kill a Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye.” —The New York Times Book Review The publication of Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina was a landmark event that won the author a National Book Award nomination and launched her into the literary spotlight. Critics have likened Allison to Harper Lee, naming her the first writer of her generation to dramatize the lives and language of poor whites in the South. Since its appearance, the novel has inspired an award-winning film and has been banned from libraries and classrooms, championed by fans, and defended by critics. Greenville County, South Carolina, is a wild, lush place that is home to the Boatwright family—a tight-knit clan of rough-hewn, hard-drinking men who shoot up each other’s trucks, and indomitable women who get married young and age too quickly. At the heart of this story is Ruth Anne Boatwright, known simply as Bone, a bastard child who observes the world around her with a mercilessly keen perspective. When her stepfather Daddy Glen, “cold as death, mean as a snake,” becomes increasingly more vicious toward her, Bone finds herself caught in a family triangle that tests the loyalty of her mother, Anney—and leads to a final, harrowing encounter from which there can be no turning back.

American Bastard is a lyrical inquiry into the life of being a bastard, sandblasting the myth of the "chosen baby."

“Wow. C. E. Murphy is good. Court intrigue in an alternate Elizabethan-era fantasy world: realpolitik with the sex included.” –Kate Elliott, author of Crown of Stars In a world where religion has ripped apart the old order, Belinda Primrose is the queen’s secret weapon. The unacknowledged daughter of Lorraine, the first queen to sit on the Aulunian throne, Belinda has been trained as a spy since the age of twelve by her father, Lorraine’s lover and spymaster. Cunning and alluring, fluent in languages and able to take on any persona, Belinda can infiltrate the glittering courts of Echon where her mother’s enemies conspire. She can seduce at will and kill if she must. But Belinda’s spying takes a new twist when her witchlight appears. Now Belinda’s powers are unlike anything Lorraine could have imagined. They can turn an obedient daughter into a rival who understands that anything can be hers, including the wickedly sensual Javier, whose throne Lorraine both covets and fears. But Javier is also witchbreed, a man whose ability rivals Belinda’s own . . . and can be just as dangerous. Amid court intrigue and magic, loyalty and love can lead to more daring passions, as Belinda discovers that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. “C. E. Murphy vividly reimagines Renaissance Europe as a world both familiar and strange. Filled with intrigue and betrayal, her story is a chess game with six of seven sides, and I look forward to seeing what the next moves are.” –Marie Brennan, author of Warrior and Witch From the Trade Paperback edition.

Children born out of wedlock were commonly stigmatized as "bastards" in early modern France. Deprived of inheritance, they were said to have neither kin nor kind, neither family nor nation. Why was this the case? Gentler alternatives to "bastard" existed in early modern French discourse, and many natural parents voluntarily recognized and cared for their extramarital offspring.Drawing upon a wide array of archival and published sources, Matthew Gerber has reconstructed numerous disputes over the rights and disabilities of children born out of wedlock in order to illuminate the changing legal condition and practical treatment of extramarital offspring over a period of two and half centuries. Gerber's study reveals that the exclusion of children born out of wedlock from the family was perpetually debated. In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century France, royal law courts intensified their stigmatization of extramarital offspring even as they usurped jurisdiction over marriage from ecclesiastic courts. Mindful of preserving elite lineages and dynastic succession of power, reform-minded jurists sought to exclude illegitimate children more thoroughly from the household. Adopting a strict moral tone, they referred to illegitimate children as "bastards" in an attempt to underscore their supposed degeneracy. Hostility toward extramarital offspring culminated in 1697 with the levying of a tax on illegitimate offspring. Contempt was never unanimous, however, and in the absence of a unified body of French law, law courts became vital sites for a highly contested cultural construction of family. Lawyers pleading on behalf of extramarital offspring typically referred to them as "natural children." French magistrates grew more receptive to this sympathetic discourse in the eighteenth century, partly in response to soaring rates of child abandonment. As costs of "foundling" care increasingly strained the resources of local communities and the state, some French elites began to publicly advocate a destigmatization of extramarital offspring while valorizing foundlings as "children of the state." By the time the Code Civil (1804) finally established a uniform body of French family law, the concept of bastardy had become largely archaic.With a cast of characters ranging from royal bastards to foundlings, Bastards explores the relationship between social and political change in the early modern era, offering new insight into the changing nature of early modern French law and its evolving contribution to the historical construction of both the family and the state.

Since 1066 when William the Conqueror (alias William the Bastard) took the throne, English and Scottish kings have sired at least 150 children out of wedlock. Many were acknowedged at court and founded dynasties of their own - several of today's dukedoms are descended from them. Others were only acknowledged grudgingly or not at all. In the twentieth century this trend for royals to father illegitimate children continued, but the parentage, while highly probably, has not been officially recognised. This book - split into four sections: Tudor, Stuart, Henoverian and, perhaps most fascinating, Royal Loose Ends - is a genuinely fresh approach to British kings and queens, examining their lives and times through the unfamiliar perspective of their illegitimate children.

In 1663, an indentured servant, Anne Orthwood, was impregnated in a tavern in Northampton County, Virginia, an illegitimate pregnancy that sparked four related cases that came before the Northampton magistrates between 1664 and 1686. These cases illuminate the ways in which the Virginia colonists modified English common law traditions and began to create their own, and they also shed light on cultural and economic values in this community. Through these cases, the very reasons legal systems are created are revealed, namely, the maintenance of social order, the protection of property interests, the protection of personal reputation, and personal liberty.