Timeline
Title
Country/Nationality
Joel Chandler Harris
Joel Chandler Harris was an American journalist, fiction writer, and folklorist best known for his collection of Uncle Remus stories. Born in Eatonton, Georgia, where he served as an apprentice on a plantation during his teenage years, Harris spent most of his adult life in Atlanta working as an associate editor at The Atlanta Constitution.
Harris led two professional lives: as the editor and journalist known as Joe Harris, he supported a vision of the New South with the editor Henry W. Grady (1880–1889), which stressed regional and racial reconciliation after the Reconstruction era. As Joel Chandler Harris, fiction writer and folklorist, he wrote many 'Brer Rabbit' stories from the African-American oral tradition.
Joel Chandler Harris was born in Eatonton, Georgia in 1848 to Mary Ann Harris, an Irish immigrant. His father, whose identity remains unknown, abandoned Mary Ann and the infant shortly after his birth. The parents had never married; the boy was named Joel after his mother's attending physician, Dr. Joel Branham. Chandler was the name of his mother's uncle. Harris remained self-conscious of his illegitimate birth throughout his life.
At the age of 14, Harris quit school to work. In March 1862, Joseph Addison Turner, owner of Turnwold Plantation nine miles east of Eatonton, hired Harris to work as a printer's devil for his newspaper The Countryman. Harris worked for clothing, room, and board. The newspaper reached subscribers throughout the Confederacy during the American Civil War; it was considered one of the larger newspapers in the South, with a circulation of about 2,000. Harris learned to set type for the paper, and Turner allowed him to publish his own poems, book reviews, and humorous paragraphs.
Joseph Addison Turner shut down The Countryman in May 1866. Joel Harris left the plantation with useless Confederate money and very few possessions. He lived for a period at The Marshall House.
In 1876 Harris was hired by Henry W. Grady at The Atlanta Constitution, where he would remain for the next 24 years. He worked with other journalists including Frank Lebby Stanton, who was in turn an associate of James Whitcomb Riley. Chandler supported the racial reconciliation envisioned by Grady. He often took the mule-drawn trolley to work, picked up his assignments, and brought them home to complete. He wrote for the Constitution until 1900.
On July 3, 1908, Joel Chandler Harris died of acute nephritis and complications from cirrhosis of the liver. In his obituary, The New York Times Book Review echoed Roosevelt's sentiment, stating: "Uncle Remus cannot die. Joel Chandler Harris has departed this life at the age of 60 ... but his best creation, [Uncle Remus] with his fund of folk-lore, will live in literature."
Books by Joel Chandler Harris
Uncle Remus
Uncle Remus is famous also for one of its most lovable and astute characters, Br'er Rabbit. This smart, yet mischievous fellow and his companions have provided endless entertainment for generations of children. The original stories were rendered in a...
Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit
Uncle Remus' stories feature a trickster hero called Br'er Rabbit ("Brother" Rabbit), who uses his wits to slide out of trouble and gain the advantage over the slower witted other animals, many of whom are trying to eat him. Br'er Rabbit stories were...
Nights With Uncle Remus
That the little boy loved Uncle Remus and his stories was so obvious that the tale-spinning sessions began drawing additional listeners. Daddy Jack, an old "Africa man" visiting from down-state; Sis Tempy, the strong chief of the mansion's servants;...
Tar Baby and Other Rhymes of Uncle Remus
26 of Uncle Remus's stories put into verse and song. With the exception of the Tar Baby story, they were all new to this publication of 1904 and cover a variety of humorous subjects from Adan and Eve (De Appile Tree) to Brer Rabbit's Gigglin' Place....
Uncle Remus Returns
Uncle Remus tells these 11 stories but to the son of the original "little boy" who is visiting his grandmother on the plantation. As always Uncle Remus can be relied upon to provide funny and pointed insight into human personalities through his story...
Uncle Remus & Friends
Uncle Remus, that genial old storyteller, knows how to spin these wonderful tales about the 'criteers' that the little 6 year old boy (and many of us adults!) love to listen to. Yet the 'Brer Rabbit and 'Brer Fox and the others sound a lot like the p...
Kidnapping of President Lincoln, and Other War Detective Stories
While detective work always makes for exciting stories, the circumstances under which the detective works play a huge role in the thrill. The stories in this collection follow detectives as they unravel mysteries in times of war, where danger awaits...