The Conjure Woman
'The Conjure Woman' Summary
Chesnutt wrote the collection's first story, "The Goophered Grapevine", in 1887 and published it in The Atlantic Monthly. Later that year, Chesnutt traveled to Boston and met with Walter Hines Page, an editor at the Houghton Mifflin Company. Page asked Chesnutt to forward some of his writing, which was the beginning of a multiple-year correspondence between the two.
Chesnutt wrote three more of the stories between 1887 and 1889 he called "Conjure Tales", two of which would eventually appear in The Conjure Woman. The stories were "Po' Sandy" published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1888, and "The Conjurer's Revenge" published in Overland Monthly in June 1889. In March of 1898, Page wrote Chesnutt to inform him that Houghton Mifflin would consider publishing a short-story collection with "the same original quality" as "The Goophered Grapevine" and "Po' Sandy". Over the next two months, Chesnutt wrote six additional stories, four of which were selected by Page and other editors at Houghton Mifflin to appear in The Conjure Woman, including "Mars Jeems's Nightmare", "Sis' Becky's Pickaninny", "The Gray Wolf's Ha'nt", and "Hot-Foot Hannibal".
Houghton Mifflin did not note Chesnutt's race when announcing and advertising the publication of The Conjure Woman. Chesnutt said that he preferred to be neither heralded or shunned on the basis of his color, but that his "colored friends ... saw to it that the fact was not overlooked". One friend wrote a "chiding" letter to the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, that published a favorable review of the book, accompanied by a portrait of Chesnutt to prove his race.
In an 1890 letter to his mentor, the Southern novelist George Washington Cable, Chesnutt explained his intent to subvert the popular image of the Negro in literary magazines, saying that "all of the many Negroes . . . whose virtues have been given to the world in the magazine press recently, have been blacks, full-blooded, and their chief virtues have been their dog-like fidelity to their old master, for whom they have been willing to sacrifice almost life itself. Such characters exist. . . . But I can't write about those people, or rather I won't write about them."
Book Details
Language
EnglishOriginal Language
EnglishPublished In
1899Author
Charles Chesnutt
United States
Charles Waddell Chesnutt was an African-American author, essayist, political activist and lawyer, best known for his novels and short stories exploring complex issues of racial and social identity in...
More on Charles ChesnuttDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
- Select Speed
Related books
The Yellow Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
Published in 1894, The Yellow Fairy Book is the fourth installment in the series of fairytale collections known as Andrew Lang's “Coloured” Fairy Book...
The Broad Highway by John Jeffery Farnol
In the enchanting world of early 20th-century England, amidst the fading echoes of horse-drawn carriages and gas-lit streets, John Jeffery Farnol weav...
The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line by Charles Chesnutt
Published in 1899, The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line is a collection of narratives that addresses the impact of Jim Crow laws...
Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Gogol
Taras Bulba is a romanticized historical novella by Nikolai Gogol. It describes the life of an old Zaporozhian Cossack, Taras Bulba, and his two sons,...
Shakespeare Monologues Collection vol. 07 by William Shakespeare
This is the seventh collection of monologues from Shakespeare’s plays. Containing 20 parts. William Shakespeare (April 26, 1564 – April 23, 1616) re...
Sketches New and Old by Mark Twain
This collection of 63 writings by Mark Twain was published in 1875. Among other sketches, it contains "The Jumping Frog" in the original English, foll...
Reginald by Saki (Hector Hugh Munro)
Saki was the pen name of the British author Hector Hugh Munro (1870 – 1916). His witty, biting and occasionally odd short stories satirised Edwardian...
Tales From Dickens by Hallie Rives
The Old Curiosity Shop; Hard Times; A Tale of Two Cities; Oliver Twist; The Pickwick Papers. Have you read any or all of these famous Dickens stories?...
Ran Away to Sea by Thomas Mayne Reid
Restless and yearning for a life of adventure beyond the idyllic countryside, Frank takes a daring leap of fate, running away to the unpredictable emb...
Old Greek Stories by James Baldwin
A retelling of old Greek stories involving mythological heroes and their adventures. Tales include those of Prometheus, Io, Perseus and Theseus.
Reviews for The Conjure Woman
No reviews posted or approved, yet...