Joel Chandler Harris (December 9, 1848 - July 3, 1908) was an American journalist, fiction writer, and folklorist best known for his collection of Uncle Remus stories. Harris was born in Eatonton, Georgia, where he served as an apprentice on a plantation during his teenage years. He spent the majority of his adult life in Atlanta working as an associate editor at the Atlanta Constitution.
Joel Chandler Harris (December 9, 1848 - July 3, 1908) was an American journalist, fiction writer, and folklorist best known for his collection of Uncle Remus stories. Harris was born in Eatonton, Georgia, where he served as an apprentice on a plantation during his teenage years. He 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), stressing 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 and helped to revolutionize literature in the process. Life: Education: 1848-1862 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. A prominent physician, Dr. Andrew Reid, gave the Harris family a small cottage to use behind his mansion. Mary Harris worked as a seamstress and helped neighbors with their gardening to support herself and her son. She was an avid reader and instilled in her son a love of language: "My desire to write-to give expression to my thoughts-grew out of hearing my mother read The Vicar of Wakefield." Dr. Reid also paid for Harris' school tuition for several years. In 1856, Joe Harris briefly attended Kate Davidson's School for Boys and Girls, but transferred to Eatonton School for Boys later that year. He had an undistinguished academic record and a habit of truancy. Harris excelled in reading and writing, but was mostly known for his pranks, mischief, and sense of humor. Practical jokes helped Harris cloak his shyness and insecurities about his red hair, Irish ancestry, and illegitimacy, leading to both trouble and a reputation as a leader among the older boys. Harris created the first version of the Uncle Remus character for the Atlanta Constitution in 1876 after inheriting a column formerly written by Samuel W. Small, who had taken leave from the paper. In these character sketches, Remus would visit the newspaper office to discuss the social and racial issues of the day. By 1877 Small had returned to the Constitution and resumed his column. Harris did not intend to continue the Remus character. But when Small left the paper again, Harris reprised Remus. He realized the literary value of the stories he had heard from the slaves of Turnwold Plantation. Harris set out to record the stories and insisted that they be verified by two independent sources before he would publish them. He found the research more difficult given his professional duties, urban location, race and, eventually, fame.[14] On July 20, 1879, Harris published "The Story of Mr. Rabbit and Mr. Fox as Told by Uncle Remus" in the Atlanta Constitution. It was the first of 34 plantation fables that would be compiled in Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (1880). The stories, mostly collected directly from the African-American oral storytelling tradition, were revolutionary in their use of dialect, animal personages, and serialized landscapes................
Joel Chandler Harris was an American journalist, fiction writer, and folklorist best known for his collection of Uncle Remus stories. Harris wrote novels, narrative histories, translations of French folklore, children's literature, and collections of stories depicting rural life in Georgia. As fiction writer and folklorist, he wrote many 'Brer Rabbit' stories from the African-American oral tradition. He realized the literary value of the stories he had heard from the slaves of Turnwold Plantation. Harris set out to record the stories and insisted that they be verified by two independent sources before he would publish them. The stories, mostly collected directly from the African-American oral storytelling tradition, were revolutionary in their use of dialect, animal personages, and serialized landscapes. 1. The Uncle Remus Books — Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (1881) — Nights with Uncle Remus (1883) — Uncle Remus and His Friends (1892) — The Tar-Baby and Other Rhymes of Uncle Remus (1904) — Told by Uncle Remus (1905) — Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit (1907) — Uncle Remus and the Little Boy (1910) — Uncle Remus Returns (1918) — Seven Tales of Uncle Remus (1948) 2. Mr. Thimblefinger Series — Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country (1894) — Mr. Rabbit at Home (1895) — The Story of Aaron (So Named), the Son of Ben Ali (1896) — Aaron in the Wildwoods (1897) 3. The Novels — The Romance of Rockville (1878) — On the Plantation (1892) — Sister Jane (1896) — Gabriel Tolliver (1902) — A Little Union Scout (1904) — Shadow between His Shoulder Blades (1909) — The Bishop and the Boogerman (1909) 4. The Shorter Fiction — Mingo and Other Sketches in Black and White (1884) — Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches (1887) — Daddy Jake, The Runaway: And Short Stories Told After Dark (1889) — Balaam and His Master and Other Sketches and Stories (1891) — Evening Tales (1893) — Stories of Georgia (1896) — Tales of the Home Folks in Peace and War (1898) — The Chronicles of Aunt Minervy Ann (1899) — Plantation Pageants (1899) — On the Wing of Occasions (1900) — The Making of a Statesman and Other Stories (1902) — Wally Wanderoon and His Story-Telling Machine (1903)
The American author and creator of the folk character Uncle Remus, Joel Chandler Harris produced a wide body of works, reflecting his life and interests in the Deep South. As a young journalist, he established a reputation as a brilliant humorist and writer of dialect. His Uncle Remus stories secured for Harris a place in American literature. The format was an instant success — a wise and genial old black man, Uncle Remus narrates tales of Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox and other animals to the son of a plantation owner, while interweaving his philosophy of the world about him. Harris’ later novels reveal his ability as a writer of ‘local color’, exploring important issues facing the South after its Reconstruction. For the first time in publishing history, this eBook presents Harris’ complete works, with numerous illustrations, many rare texts, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Harris’ life and works * Concise introductions to the novels and other texts * The Complete Uncle Remus books, for the first time in digital publishing * Includes all of the original Uncle Remus illustrations * The Complete Thimblefinger series * All 7 novels, with individual contents tables * Even includes Harris’ first novel, ‘The Romance of Rockville’, lost for many years and appearing here for the first time in digital publishing * Images of how the books were first published, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts * Excellent formatting of the texts * All works are fully illustrated with their original artwork * Rare story collections available in no other eBook * Special chronological and alphabetical contents tables for the short stories * Easily locate the stories you want to read * Includes Harris’ biography on his inspirational friend Henry W. Grady, first time in digital print * Features Wiggins’ seminal biography – discover Harris’ incredible life * Ordering of texts into chronological order and genres Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles CONTENTS: The Uncle Remus Books Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (1881) Nights with Uncle Remus (1883) Uncle Remus and His Friends (1892) The Tar-Baby and Other Rhymes of Uncle Remus (1904) Told by Uncle Remus (1905) Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit (1907) Uncle Remus and the Little Boy (1910) Uncle Remus Returns (1918) Seven Tales of Uncle Remus (1948) Mr. Thimblefinger Series Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country (1894) Mr. Rabbit at Home (1895) The Story of Aaron (So Named), the Son of Ben Ali (1896) Aaron in the Wildwoods (1897) The Novels The Romance of Rockville On the Plantation (1892) Sister Jane (1896) Gabriel Tolliver (1902) A Little Union Scout (1904) Shadow between His Shoulder Blades (1909) The Bishop and the Boogerman (1909) The Shorter Fiction Mingo and Other Sketches in Black and White (1884) Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches (1887) Daddy Jake, The Runaway: And Short Stories Told After Dark (1889) Balaam and His Master and Other Sketches and Stories (1891) Evening Tales (1893) Stories of Georgia (1896) Tales of the Home Folks in Peace and War (1898) The Chronicles of Aunt Minervy Ann (1899) Plantation Pageants (1899) On the Wing of Occasions (1900) The Making of a Statesman and Other Stories (1902) Wally Wanderoon and His Story-Telling Machine (1903) The Short Stories List of Short Stories in Chronological Order List of Short Stories in Alphabetical Order The Non-Fiction Introduction to ‘The Young Marooners on the Florida Coast’ by F. R. Goulding (1887) Life of Henry W. Grady (1890) The Biography The Life of Joel Chandler Harris (1918) by Robert Lemuel Wiggins Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles or to purchase this eBook as a Parts Edition of individual eBooks
This biography and critical study reconstructs Harris's life and career from his humble origins as an illegitimate child and plantation-newspaper printer's devil through his years in Macon, Forsyth, Savannah, and Atlanta. When Harris died in 1908, his national and international popularity rivaled his friend Mark Twain's. A psychologically complex person, Harris became an accomplished Southern local colorist who left multiple legacies as an American humorist, folklorist, New South journalist, children's writer, and author. He helped make the Old South New. Harris's Uncle Remus trickster tales derive primarily from transplanted Senegambian African folklore and are rhetorically and sociologically complex representations of the often predatory world of Old South slave life--where survival depends on trickery, wit, and will pitted against the brute strength of overseers and masters. Controversial today because he was a white man retelling black folk narratives, Harris nevertheless helped preserve the trickster tale-cycle and promote black folk-tale collecting, generally; hundreds of scholars and linguists have studied his works. Harris also made Brer Rabbit, the tar baby, and the briar patch popular-culture icons, and his highly believable animal characters and dialogues influenced the techniques of Rudyard Kipling, A. A. Milne, Beatrix Potter, E. B. White, and other children's authors. Finally, Harris's poor white and African American characters and narratives have left their mark on writers from his time to our times--from Twain to Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Ralph Ellison, and Toni Morrison.
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In this expansive study, Bryan Giemza recovers a neglected subculture and retrieves a missing chapter of Irish Catholic heritage by canvassing the literature of American Irish writers from the U.S. South. Giemza offers a defining new view of Irish American authors and their interrelationships within both transatlantic and ethnic regional contexts. From the first Irish American novel, published in Winchester, Virginia, in 1817, Giemza investigates a cast of nineteenth-century writers contending with the turbulence of their time—writers influenced by both American and Irish revolutions. Additionally, he considers dramatists and propagandists of the Civil War and Lost Cause memoirists who emerged in its wake. Some familiar names reemerge in an Irish context, including Joel Chandler Harris, Lafcadio Hearn, and Kate (O’Flaherty) Chopin. Giemza also examines the works of twentieth-century southern Irish writers, such as Margaret Mitchell, John Kennedy Toole, Flannery O’Connor, Pat Conroy, Anne Rice, Valerie Sayers, and Cormac McCarthy. For each author, Giemza traces the influences of Catholicism as it shaped both faith and ethnic identity, pointing to shared sensibilities and contradictions. Flannery O’Connor, for example, resisted identification as an Irish American, while Cormac McCarthy, described by some as “anti-Catholic,” continues a dialogue with the Church from which he distanced himself. Giemza draws on many never-before-seen documents, including authorized material from the correspondence of Cormac McCarthy, interviews from the Irish community of Flannery O’Connor’s native Savannah, Georgia, and Giemza’s own correspondence with writers such as Valerie Sayers and Anne Rice. This lively literary history prompts a new understanding of how the Irish in the region helped invent a regional mythos, an enduring literature, and a national image.
