Description
Book SynopsisWriting, publishing, and marketing five politically engaged novels that appeared between 1899 and 1908, Sutton E. Griggs (1872-1933) was among the most prolific African American authors at the turn of the twentieth century. In contrast to his Northern contemporaries Paul Laurence Dunbar and Charles Chesnutt, Griggs, as W. E. B. Du Bois remarked, spoke primarily to the Negro race, using his own Nashville-based publishing company to produce four of his novels. Griggs pastored Baptist churches in three Southern states and played a leading role in the influential but understudied National Baptist Convention. Until recently, little was known about the personal and professional life of this religious and community leader. Thus, critics could only contextualize his literary texts to a limited degree and were forced to speculate about how he published them. This literary biography, the first written about the author, draws extensively on primary sources and late nineteenth- and early twentieth
Trade ReviewThorough research underpins John Cullen Gruesser's A Literary Life of Sutton E. Griggs -- and every serious student of Black literature will want to read this biography of an important figure in American history. * Donna Meredith, Southern Literary Review *
John Cullen Gruesser's literary biography is an important addition to the reevaluation of this (turn-of-the-twentieth-century) era, in which the subject, Sutton E. Griggs, was a central figure. * Brandon Miller, Multi-Ethnic Literature of United States *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Sutton E. Griggs: Orator, Author, Activist, Elder, and Ancestor 1: The Early Years: A Family History Recovered, a Juneteenth Birth, and a Baptist Upbringing 2: Engaging in Debate and Turning to Fiction to Make His People's Case: Imperium in Imperio 3: Championing Black Labor and Fighting for the Franchise: Overshadowed and Unfettered 4: Risking All in an Attempt to Become a National Author and Publisher: The Hindered Hand 5: Transitioning away from the Novel: Pointing the Way
