The Journals of Charles W. Chesnutt

Author: Charles Waddell Chesnutt
Secondary Author: Richard H. Brodhead
ISBN: 9780822314240

Born on the eve of the Civil War, Charles W. Chesnutt grew up in Fayetteville, North Carolina, a county seat of four or five thousand people, a once-bustling commercial center slipping into postwar decline. Poor, black, and determined to outstrip his modest beginnings and forlorn surroundings, Chesnutt kept a detailed record of his thoughts, observations, and activities from his sixteenth through his twenty-fourth year (1874-1882). These journals, printed here for the first time, are remarkable for their intimate account of a gifted young black man's dawning sense of himself as a writer in the nineteenth century. Though he achieved literary success in his time, Chesnutt has only recently been rediscovered and his contribution to American literature given its due. The only known private diary from a nineteenth-century African American author, these pages offer a fascinating glimpse into Chesnutt's everyday experience as he struggled to win the goods of education in the world of the post

Publisher: Duke University Press
Publish Date: 1993

Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Cultural Heritage, Biography & Autobiography / Historical

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Cross-Cultural Center (Location: Biography (BIO))