The marrow of tradition : authoritative text, contexts, criticism / Charles W. Chesnutt; edited by Werner Sollors.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chesnutt, Charles W. (Charles Waddell), 1858-1932.

Contributor:

Sollors, Werner.

Series:

Norton critical edition

A Norton critical edition

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Multiracial people--Fiction.

Multiracial people.

Wilmington (N.C.)--Fiction.

Wilmington (N.C.).

African Americans--Fiction.

African Americans.

Race relations--Fiction.

Race relations.

Riots--Fiction.

Riots.

Chesnutt, Charles W. (Charles Waddell), 1858-1932. Marrow of tradition.

Chesnutt, Charles W.

Genre:

Fiction.

Historical fiction.

Physical Description:

xli, 523 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : W. W. Norton & Co., [2012]

Summary:

This Norton Critical Edition of Charles W. Chesnutt's vivid, suspenseful, and character-rich novel provides readers with a full sense of its historical background and cultural impact. Inspired by the 1898 Wilmington Riot and eyewitness accounts of Chesnutt's own family, The Marrow of Tradition captures the shocking moment in American history when a violent coup d'état resulted in the subversion of a democratic election.

The text of this Norton Critical Edition follows the 1901 first edition. It is accompanied by facsimiles of Chesnutt's plot outlines and pages of his hand-corrected proofs; his "own view'" of the novel; related essays; rarely seen letters from W.E.B. Bois, Booker T. Washington, and Walter Mines Page and to William Monroe Trotter; two dozen photographs and illustrations; and the editors in depth introduction and explanatory annotations.

The "Contexts" section connects the novel to Wilmington's historic moment through biographical sketches of the central players and newspaper articles, among; them Rebecca Latimer Felton's incendiary speech, Alex Manly's editorial in response to Felton, and an account by riot instigator Alfred Moore Waddell. It concludes with pioneering work by Sylvia Lyons Bender and Richard Yarborough; findings of the 2006 Wilmington Riot Commission; and a poem, sheet music, and newspaper articles on the Cakewalk, a popular dance of the period that plays a significant, ironic role in the novel.

"Criticism'' begins with such contemporary reviewers as William Dean Howells and T. Thomas Fortune and continues with scholarship by Sterling A. Brown, John Edgar Wideman, William L. Andrews, Ernestine Pickens, Brook Thomas, Jae H. Roe, and Eric Sundquist, among others.

A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included. Book jacket.

Contents:

The Text of The Marrow of Tradition 1

Contexts 197

Family Background 199

Frances Richardson Keller [Chesnutt's Parents] 199

Selected Letters 201

To Walter Hines Page, Nov. 11, 1898 201

To Walter Hines Page, [Mar. 22, 1899] 202

To Booker T. Washington, Oct. 8, 1901 204

To Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Oct. 26, 1901 205

From Booker T. Washington, Oct. 28, 1901 206

To Booker T. Washington, Nov. 16, 1901 207

To Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Dec. 30, 1901 208

To William Monroe Trotter, [Jan. 1902] 209

From W. E. B. Du Bois to Houghton, Mifflin, Mar. 8, 1902 210

To Mrs. W. B. Henderson, Nov. 11, 1905 210

Literary Memoranda 212

Charles W. Chesnutt Plot Notes 212

Samples of Chesnutt's Hand-Corrected Proof Sheets of The Marrow of Tradition 218

Essays 224

From The Courts and the Negro 224

From What Is a White Man? 226

From The White and the Black 228

The Disfranchisement of the Negro 231

The 1898 Wilmington Riot 248

Biographical Sketch of Mrs. Felton 249

Rebecca Larimer Felton Mrs. Felton Speaks 250

Biographical Sketch of Alex Manly 251

Alex Manly Editorial 254

From Cause of Carolina Riots 257

The North Carolina Race Conflict 260

From Takes Mrs. Felton to Task for Speech 264

Rebecca Larimer Felton Mrs. W. H. Felton's Reply to Dr. Hawthorne's Attack 265

North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources From Wilmington Race Riot Draft Report Offers Revelations 272

1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission Findings 274

Hell Jolted Loose 275

White Declaration of Independence 276

Negro Rule Ended, Washington Post (Nov. 11, 1898) 278

The Riot at Wilmington, Washington Post (Nov. 22, 1898) 283

A Forgotten Issue, Boston Globe (Nov. 20, 1898) 284

Is It Negro Rule? Independent (Nov. 24, 1898) 288

The South and Negro Suffrage, New York Tribune (Nov. 25, 1898) 291

Alfred Moore Waddell The Story of the Wilmington, N.C., Race Riots, Collier's Weekly (Nov. 26, 1898) 293

Black Side of the Race Issue, Washington Post (Dec. 4, 1898) 297

From The Wilmington Riot, Cleveland Gazette (Dec. 10,1898) 302

Letter by a Negro Woman to President William McKinley (Nov. 13, 1898) 303

African Americans Killed or Wounded 305

Men Banished from Wilmington during and after the November 10 Violence 310

The Wilmington Riot, Chesnott's Relatives, and African American Fiction 312

Sylvia Lyons Render [Violence] 312

Richard Yarborough Violence, Manhood, and Black Heroism 313

The Cakewalk 338

Sheet Music from the 1890s Dusky Dinah: Cake-Walk and Patrol 339

Sambo at the Cake Walk 340

Remus Takes the Cake 341

Way Down South: Characteristic March, Cake-Walk and Two-Step 342

Cakewalk in the Contemporary Press A Negro Festival, New York Tribune (July 20, 1870) 343

A Cake Walk, San Francisco Chronicle (Oct. 6, 1873) 346

H. S. Keller The Cake Walk, Puck (Sept. 7, 1887) 349

They Walked for a Cake and Glory, Chicago Daily Tribune (Feb. 18, 1892) 350

The Cake Walk, New York Times (Feb. 18, 1892) 351

Took the Cake, Boston Globe (Aug. 23, 1892) 353

Criticism 357

Selected Contemporary Reviews and Early Assessments 359

The Race Question in Fiction, The Sunday Herald [Boston] (Oct. 27, 1901) 359

Hamilton Wright Mabie From The New Books, Outlook (Nov. 16, 1901) 361

Our Holiday Book Table, Ziorn's Herald (Dec. 4, 1901) 362

Mr. Chesnutt's "Marrow of Tradition," New York Times (Dec. 7, 1901) 362

A New Uncle Tom's Cabin, St. Paid Dispatch (Dec. 14, 1901) 364

Katherine Glover News in the World of Books, Atlanta Journal (Dec. 14, 1901) 366

Charles Alexander Our Journalist and Literary Folks, The Freeman [Indianapolis] (Dec. 28, 1901) 367

Mr. Chesnutt and the Negro Problem, Newark Sunday News (Dec. 29, 1901) 368

A. E. H. From "Fiction," The Chautauquan (Dec. 1901) 372

William Dean Howells - From A Psychological Counter-Current in Recent Fiction, North American Review (Dec. 1901) 373

T. Thomas Fortune B Note and Comment, New York Age 0uly 20, 1905) 374

Sterling A. Brown, Arthur P. Davis, and Ulysses Lee [Racial Conflict in Fiction] 375

Sterling A. Brown Social Causes 375

Reception 376

Sylvia Lyons Render From Charles W. Chesnutt 376

William L. Andrews From The Literary Career of Charles W. Chesnutt 377

Characters 381

John Edgar Wideman Charles W. Chesnutt: The Marrow of Tradition 381

P. Jay Delmar Character and Structure in Charles W. Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition 390

Ernestine Williams Pickens White Supremacy and Southern Reform 397

Samina Najmi From Janet, Polly, and Olivia: Constructs of Blackness and White Femininity in Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition 400

Jungian and Foucauldian Approaches 413

Marjorie George and Richard S. Pressman From Confronting the Shadow: Psycho-Political Repression in Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition 413

Ryan Jay Friedman From "Between Absorption

Extinction": Charles Chesnutt and Biopolitical Racism 420

Plessy V. Ferguson and the Marrow of Tradition 426

U.S. Supreme Court Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) 426

Brook Thomas The Legal Argument of Charles W. Chesnutt's Novels 427

The Marrow of Tradition and History 452

Joyce Pettis The Literary Imagination and the Historic Event: Chesnutt's Use of History in The Marrow of Tradition 452

Jae H. Roe From Keeping an "Old Wound" Alive: The Marrow of Tradition and the Legacy of Wilmington 463

Eric J. Sundquist From Charles Chesnutt's Cakewalk 472

Realism, Tragic Mulatto, Violence 487

Ryan Simmons From Simple and Complex Discourse in The Marrow of Tradition 487

Stephen P. Knadler From Untragic Mulatto: Charles Chesnutt and the Discourse of Whiteness 499

Bryan Wagner From Charles Chesnutt and the Epistemology of Racial Violence 510.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9780393934144

0393934144

OCLC:

711051804