Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to the American Short Story
- The Cambridge Companion to the American Short Story
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Contexts
- Part II Histories
- Part III People and Places
- Chapter 12 Native American Short Stories
- Chapter 13 African American Short Fiction
- Chapter 14 Little Postage Stamps
- Chapter 15 Regional Stories and the Environmental Imagination
- Chapter 16 Concrete Illuminations
- Part IV Theories
- Notes
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions to…
- References
Chapter 13 - African American Short Fiction
From Reform to Renaissance
from Part III - People and Places
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 May 2023
Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to the American Short Story
- The Cambridge Companion to the American Short Story
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Contexts
- Part II Histories
- Part III People and Places
- Chapter 12 Native American Short Stories
- Chapter 13 African American Short Fiction
- Chapter 14 Little Postage Stamps
- Chapter 15 Regional Stories and the Environmental Imagination
- Chapter 16 Concrete Illuminations
- Part IV Theories
- Notes
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions to…
- References
Summary
This chapter details the literary history of short fiction written in English by African Americans from 1853 through 1934. Beginning in the antebellum era during the age of reform and continuing through the Postbellum–Pre-Harlem era before concluding with the Harlem Renaissance or New Negro Movement, this article traces the aims and goals of activists, artists, and reformers such as Frederick Douglass, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Charles Chesnutt, Pauline Hopkins, Nella Larsen, Rudolph Fisher, Zora Neale Hurston, and Langston Hughes, contextualizing and contrasting their efforts to revise and critique the reductive depictions of African American life perceived within the dominant literary trends of their respective times.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to the American Short Story , pp. 206 - 220Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023
References
Work Cited
Chesnutt, Charles W. 1968. The Wife of His Youth. Ed. Miers, Earl Schenck. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chesnutt, Charles W. 1993. The Conjure Woman and Other Conjure Tales. Ed. Brodhead, Richard H.. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Douglass, Frederick. 2015. “The Heroic Slave,” in The Heroic Slave: A Cultural and Critical Edition. Eds. Levine, Robert S., Stauffer, John, and McKivigan, John R., 3–52. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Dunbar, Paul Laurence. 2005. The Complete Stories of Paul Laurence Dunbar. Eds. Jarrett, Gene Andrew and Morgan, Thomas Lewis. Athens: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Dunbar-Nelson, Alice. 1895. Violets and Other Tales. www.gutenberg.org/files/18713/18713-h/18713-h.htm.Google Scholar
Dunbar-Nelson, Alice. 1899. The Goodness of St. Roque and Other Stories. www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/688.Google Scholar
Fisher, Rudolph. 2008. The City of Refuge: The Collected Stories of Rudolph Fisher. Eds. McCluskey, John Jr. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.Google Scholar
Gates, Henry Louis Jr. and Lemke, Sieglinde. 1996. “Introduction,” in The Complete Stories. Hurston, Zora Neale, ix–xxiii. New York: Harper Perennial.Google Scholar
Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins. 1859. “The Two Offers.” www.literaryladiesguide.com/full-texts-of-classic-works/the-two-offers-by-frances-watkins-harper/.Google Scholar
Hughes, Langston. 1996. Short Stories. Ed. Harper, Donna Akiba Sullivan. New York: Hill and Wang.Google Scholar
Hurston, Zora Neale. 2020. Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick. Ed. West, Genevieve. New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Jarrett, Gene Andrew and Morgan, Thomas Lewis. 2005. “Introduction,” in The Complete Stories of Paul Laurence Dunbar. Ed. Jarrett, Gene Andrew and Morgan, Thomas Lewis, xv–xliii. Athens: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Larsen, Nella. 2001. The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand, and The Stories. Ed. Larson, Charles. New York: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
McCluskey, John Jr. 2008. “Introduction,” in The City of Refuge: The Collected Stories of Rudolph Fisher. Ed. McCluskey, John Jr., 1–31. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.Google Scholar
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. 1986. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or, Life Among the Lowly. Ed. Douglass, Ann. New York: Penguin Press.Google Scholar