W. E. B. Du Bois to Charles W. Chesnutt, 13 February 1929
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9-14-29
February 13, 1929.
Mr. Charles W. Chesnutt,
9719 Lamont Avenue,
Cleveland, Ohio.
My dear Mr. Chesnutt:
Let me congratulate you upon the new edition of the "Conjure Woman".1 I hope some of your other works may be reprinted.2
How about the new novel?3 And by the way, haven't you a short story that we could illustrate and publish?4 I am sure you must have plenty of stuff hidden away. I hope this will find you in good health.
My best regards to your wife and daughters.
Very sincerely yours, WEBD/DWCorrespondent: William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868–1963) was a sociologist, historian, and world-renowned civil rights activist. After completing coursework at the University of Berlin and Harvard University, Du Bois became the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard in 1895. He was a professor of history, sociology, and economics at Atlanta University (1897–1910 and again in the 1930s). He was a prominent leader of the Niagara Movement and helped found the NAACP in 1909. As the editor of the NAACP's journal, The Crisis, from 1910 to 1931, Du Bois published four of Chesnutt's short stories as well as two of his essays. See "The Doll" (April 1912), "Mr. Taylor's Funeral" (April/May 1915), "The Marked Tree" (Dec 1924/Jan 1925), and "Concerning Father" (May 1930); and "Women's Rights" (1915) and "The Negro in Art" (November 1926).
1. Chesnutt's collection of short stories, The Conjure Woman, was published by Houghton, Mifflin & Company in March 1899. [back]
2. In early 1929, after Chesnutt had received the Spingarn Medal the previous year, Houghton Mifflin reissued Chesnutt's 1899 short story collection, The Conjure Woman. [back]
3. This is a reference to The Quarry, Chesnutt's novel that had been rejected by Alfred Knopf, Inc., in 1928. Houghton Mifflin Co. rejected it in 1930 and it remained unpublished during Chesnutt's lifetime. [back]
4. "Concerning Father," the last of Chesnutt's stories published in his lifetime, appeared in the May 1930 issue of Crisis. [back]
