Charles W. Chesnutt and the Fictions of Race

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Author :
Publisher : University of Georgia Press
ISBN 13 : 0820327247
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (23 download)

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Book Synopsis Charles W. Chesnutt and the Fictions of Race by : Dean McWilliams

Download or read book Charles W. Chesnutt and the Fictions of Race written by Dean McWilliams and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Chesnutt (1858-1932) was the first African American writer of fiction to win the attention and approval of America's literary establishment. Looking anew at Chesnutt's public and private writings, his fiction and nonfiction, and his well-known and recently rediscovered works, Dean McWilliams explores Chesnutt's distinctive contribution to American culture: how his stories and novels challenge our dominant cultural narratives--particularly their underlying assumptions about race. The published canon of Chesnutt's work has doubled in the last decade: three novels completed but unpublished in Chesnutt's life have appeared, as have scholarly editions of Chesnutt's journals, his letters, and his essays. This book is the first to offer chapter-length analyses of each of Chesnutt's six novels. It also devotes three chapters to his short fiction. Previous critics have read Chesnutt's nonfiction as biographical background for his fiction. McWilliams is the first to analyze these nonfiction texts as complex verbal artifacts embodying many of the same tensions and ambiguities found in Chesnutt's stories and novels. The book includes separate chapters on Chesnutt's journal and on his important essay "The Future American." Moreover, Charles W. Chesnutt and the Fictions of Race approaches Chesnutt's writings from the perspective of recent literary theory. To a greater extent than any previous study of Chesnutt, it explores the way his texts interrogate and deconstruct the language and the intellectual constructs we use to organize reality. The full effect of this new study is to show us how much more of a twentieth-century writer Chesnutt is than has been previously acknowledged. This accomplishment can only hasten his reemergence as one of our most important observers of race in American culture.

Charles W. Chesnutt and the Fictions of Race

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Author :
Publisher : University of Georgia Press
ISBN 13 : 0820324353
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (23 download)

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Book Synopsis Charles W. Chesnutt and the Fictions of Race by : Dean McWilliams

Download or read book Charles W. Chesnutt and the Fictions of Race written by Dean McWilliams and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Chesnutt (1858-1932) was the first African American writer of fiction to win the attention and approval of America's literary establishment. Looking anew at Chesnutt's public and private writings, his fiction and nonfiction, and his well-known and recently rediscovered works, Dean McWilliams explores Chesnutt's distinctive contribution to American culture: how his stories and novels challenge our dominant cultural narratives--particularly their underlying assumptions about race. The published canon of Chesnutt's work has doubled in the last decade: three novels completed but unpublished in Chesnutt's life have appeared, as have scholarly editions of Chesnutt's journals, his letters, and his essays. This book is the first to offer chapter-length analyses of each of Chesnutt's six novels. It also devotes three chapters to his short fiction. Previous critics have read Chesnutt's nonfiction as biographical background for his fiction. McWilliams is the first to analyze these nonfiction texts as complex verbal artifacts embodying many of the same tensions and ambiguities found in Chesnutt's stories and novels. The book includes separate chapters on Chesnutt's journal and on his important essay "The Future American." Moreover, Charles W. Chesnutt and the Fictions of Race approaches Chesnutt's writings from the perspective of recent literary theory. To a greater extent than any previous study of Chesnutt, it explores the way his texts interrogate and deconstruct the language and the intellectual constructs we use to organize reality. The full effect of this new study is to show us how much more of a twentieth-century writer Chesnutt is than has been previously acknowledged. This accomplishment can only hasten his reemergence as one of our most important observers of race in American culture.

Whiteness in the Novels of Charles W. Chesnutt

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Author :
Publisher : Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN 13 : 1496802004
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (968 download)

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Book Synopsis Whiteness in the Novels of Charles W. Chesnutt by : Matthew Wilson

Download or read book Whiteness in the Novels of Charles W. Chesnutt written by Matthew Wilson and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2009-09-18 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles W. Chesnutt (1858–1932), critically acclaimed for his novels, short stories, and essays, was one of the most ambitious and influential African American writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Today recognized as a major innovator of American fiction, Chesnutt is an important contributor to deromanticizing trends in post–Civil War southern literature, and a singular voice among turn-of-the-century realists who wrote about race in American life. Whiteness in the Novels of Charles W. Chesnutt is the first study to focus exclusively on Chesnutt's novels. Examining the three published in Chesnutt's lifetime—The House Behind the Cedars, The Marrow of Tradition, and The Colonel's Dream—as well as his posthumously published novels, this study explores the dilemma of a black writer who wrote primarily for a white audience. Throughout, Matthew Wilson analyzes the ways in which Chesnutt crafted narratives for his white readership and focuses on how he attempted to infiltrate and manipulate the feelings and convictions of that audience. Wilson pays close attention to the genres in which Chesnutt was working and also to the social and historical context of the novels. In articulating the development of Chesnutt's career, Wilson shows how Chesnutt's views on race evolved. By the end of his career, he felt that racial differences were not genetically inherent, but social constructions based on our background and upbringing. Finally, the book closely examines Chesnutt's unpublished manuscripts that did not deal with race. Even in these works, in which African Americans are only minor characters, Wilson finds Chesnutt engaged with the conundrum of race and reveals him as one of America's most significant writers on the subject.

Charles W. Chesnutt: Essays and Speeches

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Author :
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780804744324
Total Pages : 644 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (443 download)

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Book Synopsis Charles W. Chesnutt: Essays and Speeches by : Joseph R. McElrath, Jr.

Download or read book Charles W. Chesnutt: Essays and Speeches written by Joseph R. McElrath, Jr. and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2001-12-01 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932) has been considered by many the major African-American fiction writer before the Harlem Renaissance. This book collects essays he wrote from 1899 through 1931, the majority of which concern white racism, and political and literary addresses he made to both white and black audiences from 1881 through 1931.

The Northern Stories of Charles W. Chesnutt

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Author :
Publisher : Ohio University Press
ISBN 13 : 0821415425
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (214 download)

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Book Synopsis The Northern Stories of Charles W. Chesnutt by : Charles Waddell Chesnutt

Download or read book The Northern Stories of Charles W. Chesnutt written by Charles Waddell Chesnutt and published by Ohio University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles W. Chestnutt's Northern writings describe the ways in which America was reshaping itself at the turn of the 19th century. This collection of Chestnutt's Northern stories portray life in the North in the period between the Civil War and World War I.

Charles W. Chesnutt: Stories, Novels, and Essays (LOA #131)

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 968 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Charles W. Chesnutt: Stories, Novels, and Essays (LOA #131) by : Charles Waddell Chesnutt

Download or read book Charles W. Chesnutt: Stories, Novels, and Essays (LOA #131) written by Charles Waddell Chesnutt and published by . This book was released on 2002-01-14 with total page 968 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essential writings from a pioneer of African-American literature features two stories newly restored to print. Eight essays highlight Chesnutt's prescient views on the paradoxes of race relations in America and the definition of race itself.

The Journals of Charles W. Chesnutt

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Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780822314240
Total Pages : 204 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (142 download)

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Book Synopsis The Journals of Charles W. Chesnutt by : Charles Waddell Chesnutt

Download or read book The Journals of Charles W. Chesnutt written by Charles Waddell Chesnutt and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born on the eve of the Civil War, Charles W. Chesnutt grew up in Fayetteville, North Carolina, a county seat of four or five thousand people, a once-bustling commercial center slipping into postwar decline. Poor, black, and determined to outstrip his modest beginnings and forlorn surroundings, Chesnutt kept a detailed record of his thoughts, observations, and activities from his sixteenth through his twenty-fourth year (1874-1882). These journals, printed here for the first time, are remarkable for their intimate account of a gifted young black man's dawning sense of himself as a writer in the nineteenth century. Though he achieved literary success in his time, Chesnutt has only recently been rediscovered and his contribution to American literature given its due. The only known private diary from a nineteenth-century African American author, these pages offer a fascinating glimpse into Chesnutt's everyday experience as he struggled to win the goods of education in the world of the post-Civil War South. An extraordinary portrait of the self-made man beset by the urgencies and difficulties of self-improvement in a racially discriminatory society, Chesnutt's journals unfold a richly detailed local history of postwar North Carolina. They also show with great force how the world of the postwar South obstructed--and, unexpectedly, assisted--a black man of driving intellectual ambitions.

The Quarry

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Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400851610
Total Pages : 317 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis The Quarry by : Charles W. Chesnutt

Download or read book The Quarry written by Charles W. Chesnutt and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Was Donald Glover really what he seemed--a handsome, dedicated, and clever African-American star of the Harlem Renaissance, whose looks made him the "quarry" of a variety of women? Or could the secrets of his birth change his destiny entirely? Focusing on the culture of Harlem in the 1920s, Charles Chesnutt's final novel dramatizes the political and aesthetic life of the exciting period we now know as the Harlem Renaissance. Mixing fact and fiction, and real and imagined characters, The Quarry is peopled with so many figures of the time--including Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. DuBois, and Marcus Garvey--that it constitutes a virtual guide to this inspiring period in American history. Protagonist Glover is a light-skinned man whose adoptive black parents are determined that he become a leader of the black people. Moving from Ohio to Tennessee, from rural Kentucky to Harlem, his story depicts not only his conflicted relationship to his heritage but also the situation of a variety of black people struggling to escape prejudice and to take advantage of new opportunities. Although he was the first African-American writer of fiction to gain acceptance by America's white literary establishment, Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932) has been eclipsed in popularity by other writers who later rose to prominence during the Harlem Renaissance. Recently, this pathbreaking American writer has been receiving an increasing amount of attention. Two of his novels, Paul Marchand, F.M.C. (completed in 1921) and The Quarry (completed in 1928), were considered too incendiary to be published during Chesnutt's lifetime. Their publication now provides us not only the opportunity to read these two books previously missing from Chesnutt's oeuvre but also the chance to appreciate better the intellectual progress of this literary pioneer. Chesnutt was the author of many other works, including The Conjure Woman & Other Conjure Tales, The House Behind the Cedars, The Marrow Tradition, and Mandy Oxendine. Princeton University Press recently published To Be an Author: Letters of Charles W. Chesnutt, 1889-1905 (edited by Joseph R. McElrath, Jr., and Robert C. Leitz, III). Originally published in 1999. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Paul Marchand, F.M.C.

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Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 140086495X
Total Pages : 213 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis Paul Marchand, F.M.C. by : Charles W. Chesnutt

Download or read book Paul Marchand, F.M.C. written by Charles W. Chesnutt and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evoking the atmosphere of early-nineteenth-century New Orleans and the deadly aftermath of the San Domingo slave revolution, this historical novel begins as its protagonist puzzles over the seemingly prophetic dream of an aged black praline seller in the famous Place d'Armes. Paul Marchand, a free man of color living in New Orleans in the 1820s, is despised by white society for being a quadroon, yet he is a proud, wealthy, well-educated man. In this city where great wealth and great poverty exist side by side, the richest Creole in town lies dying. The family of the aged Pierre Beaurepas eagerly, indeed greedily, awaits disposition of his wealth. As the bombshell of Beaurepas's will explodes, an old woman's dream takes on new meaning, and Marchand is drawn ever more closely into contact with a violently racist family. Bringing to life the entwined racial cultures of New Orleans society, Charles Chesnutt not only writes an exciting tale of adventure and mystery but also makes a provocative comment on the nature of racial identity, self-worth, and family loyalty. Although he was the first African-American writer of fiction to gain acceptance by America's white literary establishment, Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932) has been eclipsed in popularity by other writers who later rose to prominence during the Harlem Renaissance. Recently, this pathbreaking American writer has been receiving an increasing amount of attention. Two of his novels, Paul Marchand, F.M.C. (completed in 1921) and The Quarry (completed in 1928), were considered too incendiary to be published during Chesnutt's lifetime. Their publication now provides us not only the opportunity to read these two books previously missing from Chesnutt's oeuvre but also the chance to appreciate better the intellectual progress of this literary pioneer. Chesnutt was the author of many other works, including The Conjure Woman & Other Conjure Tales, The House Behind the Cedars, The Marrow Tradition, and Mandy Oxendine. Princeton University Press recently published To Be an Author: Letters of Charles W. Chesnutt, 1889-1905 (edited by Joseph R. McElrath, Jr., and Robert C. Leitz, III). Originally published in 1999. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Charles Chesnutt Reappraised

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Author :
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 0786480017
Total Pages : 239 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (864 download)

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Book Synopsis Charles Chesnutt Reappraised by : David Garrett Izzo

Download or read book Charles Chesnutt Reappraised written by David Garrett Izzo and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-11-21 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the best known and most widely read of early African American writers, Charles W. Chesnutt published more than fifty short stories, six novels, two plays, a biography of Frederick Douglass, and countless essays, poems, letters, journals, and speeches. Though he had light skin and was of mixed race, Chesnutt self-identified as a black man, and his writing was often boldly political, openly addressing problems of racial identity and injustice in the late 19th century. This collection of critical essays reevaluates the Chesnutt legacy, introducing new scholarship reflective of the many facets of his fiction, especially his sophisticated narrative strategies.

The Portable Charles W. Chesnutt

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Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0143105345
Total Pages : 545 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (431 download)

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Book Synopsis The Portable Charles W. Chesnutt by : Charles W. Chesnutt

Download or read book The Portable Charles W. Chesnutt written by Charles W. Chesnutt and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-05-27 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection from one of our most influential African American writers An icon of nineteenth-century American fiction, Charles W. Chesnutt, an incisive storyteller of the aftermath of slavery in the South, is widely credited with almost single-handedly inaugurating the African American short story tradition and was the first African American novelist to achieve national critical acclaim. This major addition to Penguin Classics features an ideal sampling of his work: twelve short stories (including conjure tales and protest fiction), three essays, and the novel The Marrow of Tradition. Published here for the 150th anniversary of Chesnutt's birth, The Portable Charles W. Chesnutt will bring to a new audience the genius of a man whose legacy underlies key trends in modern Black fiction. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

An Exemplary Citizen: Letters of Charles W. Chesnutt, 1906-1932

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Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780804745086
Total Pages : 380 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (45 download)

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Book Synopsis An Exemplary Citizen: Letters of Charles W. Chesnutt, 1906-1932 by : Charles Waddell Chesnutt

Download or read book An Exemplary Citizen: Letters of Charles W. Chesnutt, 1906-1932 written by Charles Waddell Chesnutt and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book collects the letters written between 1906 and 1932 by the African-American novelist and civil rights activist Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932). His correspondents included prominent members of the Harlem Renaissance as well as major American political figures Chesnutt sought to influence on behalf of his fellow African Americans.

Collected Stories of Charles W. Chesnutt

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Author :
Publisher : Signet
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Collected Stories of Charles W. Chesnutt by : Charles Waddell Chesnutt

Download or read book Collected Stories of Charles W. Chesnutt written by Charles Waddell Chesnutt and published by Signet. This book was released on 1992 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Credited with almost single-handedly pioneering a genuine African-American literary tradition in the short story, Chesnutt has influenced writers such as James Weldon Johnson and Charles Johnson. This collections contains all the stories in Chesnutt's two published volumes, The Conjure Woman and The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, along with two uncollected works.

The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and Selected Essays

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Author :
Publisher : DigiCat
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 221 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (596 download)

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Book Synopsis The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and Selected Essays by : Charles W. Chesnutt

Download or read book The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and Selected Essays written by Charles W. Chesnutt and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-08-15 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and Selected Essays" by Charles W. Chesnutt. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

The House Behind the Cedars

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Publisher : Graphic Arts Books
ISBN 13 : 151326687X
Total Pages : 156 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (132 download)

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Book Synopsis The House Behind the Cedars by : Charles W. Chestnutt

Download or read book The House Behind the Cedars written by Charles W. Chestnutt and published by Graphic Arts Books. This book was released on 2020-11-17 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The House Behind the Cedars (1900) is African-American writer Charles Chesnutt’s debut novel. Inspired by his own experience as a Black man capable of passing for white—which Chesnutt consciously chose not to do—as well as by Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, The House Behind the Cedars explores themes of identity, race, and class in the post-Civil War South. Controversial for its portrayal of interracial romance, Chesnutt’s novel was critically acclaimed in its day, but failed financially. It was adapted into a 1927 silent film by pioneering Black director Oscar Micheaux. After years of living in the city, John Warwick visits his hometown to see his mother and sister. Hearing of his success as a lawyer and father, Rena, his sister, is intrigued with city life and decides to join him when he returns. With a black mother and white father, the two are able to pass for white, which allows them—Rena soon discovers—a certain amount of social mobility in the South. It being only a few years after the Civil War, there is of course some risk to this, but the opportunity is too enticing to pass up. Rena soon meets George, a wealthy white man and business partner of her brother, and the two fall in love. When she is called home to care for her sick mother, and as George begins to grow suspicious, it becomes more and more difficult to keep her secret—and her family—safe. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Charles Chesnutt’s The House Behind the Cedars is a classic of African American literature reimagined for modern readers.

The Conjure Woman

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Author :
Publisher : IndyPublish.com
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis The Conjure Woman by : Charles Waddell Chesnutt

Download or read book The Conjure Woman written by Charles Waddell Chesnutt and published by IndyPublish.com. This book was released on 1900 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line

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Author :
Publisher : Graphic Arts Books
ISBN 13 : 1513274317
Total Pages : 164 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (132 download)

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Book Synopsis The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line by : Charles W. Chestnutt

Download or read book The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line written by Charles W. Chestnutt and published by Graphic Arts Books. This book was released on 2021-05-07 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color-Line (1899) is a collection of short stories by African American writer, lawyer, and political activist Charles Chesnutt. Originally published in a July 1888 edition of The Atlantic—in which, in 1887, Chesnutt became the first African American to have a story published in its pages—“The Wife of His Youth” has become the author’s most frequently anthologized story. The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color-Line contains nine stories and three essays by Charles Chesnutt, a pioneer of African American literature. The title story of the collection follows Mr. Ryder, a light skinned man living in a city in the American Midwest. The founder of the Blue Veins Society, a local club whose members consist of black men with European ancestry, Mr. Ryder plans to propose to a beautiful mixed-race woman named Molly Dixon. As the day of the Blue Vein Ball approaches—he hopes to propose on stage while giving a speech—Ryder meets an older black woman named Liza Jane who assisted her husband, Sam Taylor, in escaping north before the Civil War, but never heard from him again. “The Passing of Grandison,” another story in the collection, is a tale of racial passing set in the 1850s that follows a slave who travels to Canada with the help of a white man. The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color-Line is a masterful work of short fiction and essay writing from a pioneer of African American literature. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Charles Chesnutt’s The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color-Line is a classic of African American literature reimagined for modern readers.