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Stories, novels & essays / Charles W. Chesnutt.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Library of America ; 131.Publication details: New York : Library of America, c2002.Description: x, 939 p. ; 21 cmISBN:
  • 1931082065 (alk. paper)
  • 9781931082068 (alk. paper)
Other title:
  • Stories, novels, and essays
Uniform titles:
  • Selections. 2002
Subject(s): LOC classification:
  • PS1292.C6 A6 2002
Online resources:
Contents:
The conjure woman -- The wife of his youth and other stories of the color line -- The house behind the cedars --The marrow of tradition -- Uncollected stories -- Selected essays.
Summary: Publisher description: Charles W. Chesnutt broke new ground in American literature with searching explorations of the meaning of race and innovative use of African American speech and folklore. Rejecting genteel Victorian hypocrisy about miscegenation, lynching, and "passing," Chesnutt exposed the deformed logic of Jim Crow with novels and stories of formal clarity-creating, in the process, the modern African American novel. The Conjure Woman (1899) introduced Chesnutt to the public as a writer of "conjure" tales, stories that explore black folklore and supernaturalism. That same year, he published The Wife of His Youth, and Other Stories of the Color Line, stories set in Chesnutt's native North Carolina that dramatize the legacies of slavery and Reconstruction at the turn of the century. His first novel, The House Behind the Cedars (1900) tells, as no previous novel ever had, of racial passing. The Marrow of Tradition (1901), Chesnutt's masterpiece, is a powerful and bitter novel about the harsh reassertion of white dominance in a southern town at the end of the Reconstruction era, based largely on the Wilmington race riot. Nine uncollected short stories, including conjure tales omitted from The Conjure Woman, round out a selection of the author's fiction. Eight essays highlight Chesnutt's prescient views on the paradoxes of race relations in America and the definition of race itself.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode
Books (30-Day Checkout) Books (30-Day Checkout) Nash Library General Stacks PS1292.C6A6 2002 1 Available 33710001048011

Includes bibliographical references (p. 929-939).

The conjure woman -- The wife of his youth and other stories of the color line -- The house behind the cedars --The marrow of tradition -- Uncollected stories -- Selected essays.

Publisher description: Charles W. Chesnutt broke new ground in American literature with searching explorations of the meaning of race and innovative use of African American speech and folklore. Rejecting genteel Victorian hypocrisy about miscegenation, lynching, and "passing," Chesnutt exposed the deformed logic of Jim Crow with novels and stories of formal clarity-creating, in the process, the modern African American novel. The Conjure Woman (1899) introduced Chesnutt to the public as a writer of "conjure" tales, stories that explore black folklore and supernaturalism. That same year, he published The Wife of His Youth, and Other Stories of the Color Line, stories set in Chesnutt's native North Carolina that dramatize the legacies of slavery and Reconstruction at the turn of the century. His first novel, The House Behind the Cedars (1900) tells, as no previous novel ever had, of racial passing. The Marrow of Tradition (1901), Chesnutt's masterpiece, is a powerful and bitter novel about the harsh reassertion of white dominance in a southern town at the end of the Reconstruction era, based largely on the Wilmington race riot. Nine uncollected short stories, including conjure tales omitted from The Conjure Woman, round out a selection of the author's fiction. Eight essays highlight Chesnutt's prescient views on the paradoxes of race relations in America and the definition of race itself.