The Hermaphrodite  is the title given by the University of Nebraska Press to a fragmented manuscript written around 1847 by Julia Ward Howe, featuring an ambiguously-gendered character named Laurence.  The first six chapters of this work will appear in the fourth edition of the Heath Anthology of American Literature, ed. Paul Lauter, with a headnote by Renee Bergland.  The text has been the focus of panels at the American Literature Association (2005) and the American Studies Association (2007), as well as a featured text at a semi-annual meeting of the Nineteenth Century Women Writers Study Group (Amherst College 2005).