"To be an author" : letters of Charles W. Chesnutt, 1889-1905 / edited by Joseph R. McElrath, Jr., and Robert C. Leitz, III.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Print version record.

Preface; Acknowledgments ; Editorial Note ; INTRODUCTION; PART I Cable's Protege in 1889-1891 An ""Insider"" Views the Negro Question; PART II A Dream Deferred, 1891-1896 The Businessman Prevails; PART III Page's Protege in 1897-1899 The Remergence of the Artist and Prophet Artist and Prophet; PART IV The Professional Novelist of 1899-1902 Pursuit of the Dream; PART V Discontent in 1903-1904 A Turn to Argumentative Prose ; PART VI The Quest Renewed, 1904-1905 Argumentative Art for an Indifferent Readership; INDEX.

Collected in this volume are the 1889--1905 letters of one of the first African-American literary artists to cross the ""color line"" into the de facto segregated American publishing industry of the turn of the century. Selected for inclusion are those chronicling the rise of Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932), an attorney and businessman in Cleveland, Ohio, who achieved prominence as a novelist, short story writer, essayist, and lecturer despite the obstacles faced by a man of color during the ""Jim Crow"" period. In his insightful commentaries on his own situation, Chesnutt provides as well.

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