Charles W. Chestnutt

Gebundenes Buch

The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line

Beschreibung

The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color-Line (1899) is a collection of short stories by African American writer, lawyer, and political activist Charles Chesnutt. Originally published in a July 1888 edition of The Atlantic-in which, in 1887, Chesnutt became the first African American to have a story published in its pages-"The Wife of His Youth" has become the author's most frequently anthologized story. The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color-Line contains nine stories and three essays by Charles Chesnutt, a pioneer of African American literature. The title story of the collection follows Mr. Ryder, a light skinned man living in a city in the American Midwest. The founder of the Blue Veins Society, a local club whose members consist of black men with European ancestry, Mr. Ryder plans to propose to a beautiful mixed-race woman named Molly Dixon. As the day of the Blue Vein Ball approaches-he hopes to propose on stage while giving a speech-Ryder meets an older black woman named Liza Jane who assisted her husband, Sam Taylor, in escaping north before the Civil War, but never heard from him again. "The Passing of Grandison," another story in the collection, is a tale of racial passing set in the 1850s that follows a slave who travels to Canada with the help of a white man. The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color-Line is a masterful work of short fiction and essay writing from a pioneer of African American literature. This edition of Charles Chesnutt's The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color-Line is a classic of African American literature reimagined for modern readers. Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book. With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Autor

Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932) was an African American author, lawyer, and political activist. Born in Cleveland to a family of "free persons of color" from North Carolina, Chesnutt spent his youth in Ohio before returning to the South after the Civil War. As a teenager, he worked as a teacher at a local school for Black students and eventually became principal at a college established in Fayetteville for the purpose of training Black teachers. Chesnutt married Susan Perry-with whom he had four daughters-in 1878 and moved to New York City for a short time before settling in Cleveland, where he studied law and passed the bar exam in 1887. His story "The Goophered Grapevine," published the same year, was the first story by an African American to appear in The Atlantic. Back in Ohio, Chesnutt started the court stenography business that would earn him the financial stability to pursue a career as a writer. He wrote several collections of short stories, including The Conjure Woman (1899) and The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color-Line (1899), both of which explore themes of race in America and African American identity as well as employ African American Vernacular English. Chesnutt was also an active member of the NAACP throughout his life, writing for its magazine The Crisis, serving on its General Committee, and working with such figures as W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Mint Editions
• Seitenzahl: 200
• Erscheinungstermin: 7. Mai 2021
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 209mm x 132mm x 14mm
• Gewicht: 312g
• ISBN-13: 9781513204703
• ISBN-10: 151320470X
• Artikelnr.: 62389808