About this eBook
The essays engage with each other to display the continuum in Chesnutt's thinking as he began his writing career and established his sense of social activism, as evidenced in his early journal entries. Collectively, the essays follow Chesnutt's works as he proceeded through the Jim Crow era, honing his ability to manipulate his mostly white audience through the astute, though apparently self-effacing, narrator, Uncle Julius, of his popular conjure tales. Chesnutt's ability to subvert audience expectations is equally noticeable in the subtle irony of his short stories. Several of the collection's essays address Chesnutt's novels, including Paul Marchand, F.M.C., Mandy Oxendine, The House Behind the Cedars, and Evelyn's Husband. The volume opens up new paths of inquiry into a major African American writer's oeuvre.
About the author
Susan Prothro Wright, associate professor of American and British literature at Clark Atlanta University, has published on Chesnutt and other American authors in a variety of scholarly venues.
Ernestine Pickens Glass is professor emerita of English at Clark Atlanta University. She is the author of Charles W. Chesnutt and the Progressive Movement and editor of Frederick Douglass by Charles W. Chesnutt: A Centenary Edition.
