The House Behind the Cedars

by Chesnutt, Charles Waddell; Andrews, William L.

• ISBN13: 9780820321943
• ISBN10: 082032194X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-04-01
• Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr

Summary

The House Behind the Cedars, which many consider Charles Chesnutt's finest novel, tells of John and Lena Walden, mulatto siblings who pass for white in the postbellum American South. The drama that unfolds as they travel between black and white worlds constitutes a riveting portrait of the shifting and intractable nature of race in American life. This edition revitalizes a much-neglected masterpiece by one of our most important African-American writers. As Werner Sollors writes, "William Dean Howells did not overstate his case when he compared Chesnutt's works with those by Turgenev, Maupassant, and James . . . and ÝChesnutt¨ has become one of the most important 'crossover' authors from the African-American tradition."

Author Biography

Charles W. Chesnutt, born in 1858, is generally acknowledged as the first publicly acclaimed African American novelist. Between 1885 and 1905 he published more than fifty tales and essays, two collections of short stories, a biography of Frederick Douglass, and three novels.

Table of Contents

Foreword	vii
A Stranger From South Carolina	1	(13)
An Evening Visit	14	(18)
The Old Judge	32	(4)
Down The River	36	(9)
The Tournament	45	(14)
The Queen of Love and Beauty	59	(4)
'Mid New Surroundings	63	(4)
The Courtship	67	(10)
Doubts and Fears	77	(11)
The Dream	88	(8)
A Letter and A Journey	96	(8)
Tryon Goes To Patesville	104	(12)
An Injudicious Payment	116	(8)
A Loyal Friend	124	(8)
Mine Own People	132	(10)
The Bottom Falls Out	142	(7)
Two Letters	149	(6)
Under The Old Regime	155	(23)
God Made Us All	178	(11)
Digging Up Roots	189	(4)
A Gilded Opportunity	193	(10)
Imperative Business	203	(6)
The Guest of Honor	209	(11)
Swing Your Partners	220	(8)
Balance All	228	(5)
The Schoolhouse in the Woods	233	(6)
An Interesting Acquaintance	239	(5)
The Lost Knife	244	(7)
Plato Earns Half A Dollar	251	(9)
An Unusual Honor	260	(8)
In Deep Waters	268	(9)
The Power of Love	277	(5)
A Mule and A Cart	282