Charles W Chesnutt
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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...
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The Conjure Woman (1899) is a collection of stories by African American author, lawyer, and political activist Charles Chesnutt. "The Goophered Grapevine," the collection's opening story, was originally published in The Atlantic in 1887, making Chesnutt the first African American to have a story published in the magazine. The Conjure Woman is now considered a masterpiece of African American fiction for its use of folklore and exploration of racist...
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Chesnutt's final novel tells the story of Colonel Henry French, a successful New York businessman who has returned to his southern birthplace of Clarendon with his young son, Phil. While intending only a three-month vacation (as ordered by his northern doctor), the nostalgic Colonel French, persuaded by his fond boyhood memories of southern life, decides to remain indefinitely in Clarendon. Yet he encounters a town beset by rigid social divisions,...