Charles W. Chesnutt: America's First Great Black Novelist

This study of Chesnutt is both an appreciation of a unique artist and investigation of a whole culture. We are simultaneously taken into the past and led into our present lives. The writer, fighting against the prejudices and social indifference of his own world, mirrors closely the frailties and strengths of our own turbulent times. No author exists apart from his environment, that in which he is raised and that for which he later writes. The present work is not solely a biography and an examination of its subject's writings both quantitatively and qualitatively. It is also a full exposition of the period in which Chesnutt lived, a search for those complex and diverse sociological conditions which forged his strength and artistry. -- From publisher's description.