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.

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

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.

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.

Sex, power, mystery and blood - this fresh approach to the British monarchy recounts gripping, untold stories about their unofficial offspring.