The Marrow of Tradition (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) - Softcover

Chesnutt, Charles W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140186867 ISBN 13: 9780140186864

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1993

Synopsis

This novel is based on a historically accurate account of the Wilmington, North Carolina, "race riot" of 1898, and is a passionate portrait of the betrayal of black culture in America, by an acclaimed African-American writer. 

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About this title

About the Author

Charles W. Chestnutt (1858–1932) was born in Cleveland, Ohio, where his family had moved from Fayettefille, North Carolina, to seek better economic opportunities. Shortly after the Civil War, they returned to Fayetteville, where Chesnutt spent most of his childhood and young adulthood. He taught in local public schools, eventually returning to Cleveland and being admitted to the bar. He established a legal stenography business yet found himself strongly attracted to writing fiction. He published two collections of short stories, The Conjure Woman and The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line (1890) and three widely reviewed novels, The House Behind the Cedars (1900), The Marrow of Tradition (1901), and The Colonel's Dream (1905), while devoting essays and speeches to agitation for civil rights for African Americans, especially in the South. Unable to support his family as a full-time writer, he resumed his business career but maintained until his death a respected role in African American letters.

Eric J. Sundquist is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities at the Johns Hopkins University, where he teaches courses about American literature and culture. His books include King’s Dream: The Legacy of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” Speech and Strangers in the Land: Blacks, Jews, Post-Holocaust America. Professor Sundquist has also edited essay collections on Mark Twain, Ralph Ellison, and W. E. B. Du Bois.

From AudioFile

Chesnutt, one of the most important African-American writers of the nineteenth century, tells a complex tale of race, injustice, and passion. His style is elaborate; Chesnutt sometimes writes in the formal cadences of the Victorian novel and sometimes in a range of heavy Southern dialects. However, Michael Collins masters all dialects and makes characters as disparate as white trash Captain McBain and Jane, the aged black servant, live with equal facility. A few sound effects, such as period music and crowd sounds during the riot at the book's climax, contribute to give the impression that Collins is performing the book rather than simply reading it. G.T.B. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0140186867
• ISBN 13: 9780140186864
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400
• Editor: Sundquist Eric J.