The House Behind the Cedars

by Chesnutt, Charles W.; Gibson, Donald B.

• ISBN13: 9780140186857
• ISBN10: 0140186859
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1993-04-01
• Publisher: PENGUIN PUTNAM

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."

Table of Contents

Introduction	vii
Suggestions for Further Reading	xxv
A Stranger from South Carolina	1	(9)
An Evening Visit	10	(12)
The Old Judge	22	(3)
Down the River	25	(6)
The Tournament	31	(9)
The Queen of Love and Beauty	40	(3)
'Mid New Surroundings	43	(3)
The Courtship	46	(7)
Doubts and Fears	53	(7)
The Dream	60	(5)
A Letter and a Journey	65	(5)
Tryon Goes to Patesville	70	(8)
An Injudicious Payment	78	(6)
A Loyal Friend	84	(5)
Mine Own People	89	(6)
The Bottom Falls Out	95	(5)
Two Letters	100	(4)
Under the Old Regime	104	(15)
God Made Us All	119	(8)
Digging Up Roots	127	(3)
A Gilded Opportunity	130	(7)
Imperative Business	137	(4)
The Guest of Honor	141	(7)
Swing Your Partners	148	(5)
Balance All	153	(3)
The Schoolhouse in the Woods	156	(4)
An Interesting Acquaintance	160	(3)
The Lost Knife	163	(5)
Plato Earns Half a Dollar	168	(6)
An Unusual Honor	174	(5)
In Deep Waters	179	(6)
The Power of Love	185	(3)
A Mule and a Cart	188