Description
Book SynopsisReassembles the Charles W Chesnutt's work in the conjure tale genre. This work allows the reader to see how the original volume was created, how an African American author negotiated with the tastes of the dominant literary culture of the late nineteenth century, and how that culture both promoted and delimited his work.
Trade Review"Finally, we have Charles W. Chesnutt's conjure woman stories as he wrote them, not as Houghton Mifflin edited them. This collection is a landmark in American literary publishing for it helps us to understand the pressures exerted upon all authors and especially on African American writers. More important, these wonderful stories are now available to a new generation of readers."—Cathy N. Davidson
"The publication of the conjure tales of Chesnutt constituted a crucial development in the history of African American [literature]. Yet up to now no one has attempted to do what Brodhead has done--namely, collect all the stories in this vein and publish them with an introduction that explains their import individually, serially, and as a collection. . . . His introduction augments the best scholarship that's been done on Chesnutt with his own broad expertise in the history of American fiction and his acute readings of individual Chesnutt tales."—William L. Andrews, University of Kansas
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1
Chronology of Composition 23
A Note on the Text 25
Selected Bibliography 27
The Conjure Woman
The Goophered Grapevine 31
Po' Sandy 44
Mars Jeems's Nightmare 55
The Conjurer's Revenge 70
Sis' Becky's Pickaninny 82
The Gray Wolf's Ha'nt 94
Hot-Foot Hannibal 107
Related Tales
Dave's Neckliss 123
A Deep Sleeper 136
Lonesome Ben 146
The Dumb Witness 158
A Victim of Heredity; or, Why the Darkey Loves Chicken 172
Tobe's Tribulations 183
The Marked Tree 194
