Charles W. Chesnutt to Horace Traubel, 19 December 1902
| Textual Feature | Appearance |
|---|---|
| alterations to base text (additions or deletions) | added or deleted text |
| passage deleted with a strikethrough mark | |
| passage deleted by overwritten added text | Deleted text Added text |
| position of added text (if not added inline) | [right margin] text added in right margin; [above line] text added above the line |
| proofreading mark | ‸ |
| page number, repeated letterhead, etc. | page number or repeated letterhead |
| supplied text | [supplied text] |
| archivist note | archivist note |
CHAS. W. CHESNUTT
1005 WILLIAMSON BUILDING.
CLEVELAND, O.
December 19, 1902
My dear Mr. Traubel:—
Thanks for your kind notice of "The Conjure Woman," or rather of its author, in the November Conservator.1
Some of the plots of the stories—aside of course from their racial or sociological aspects, seem to have become popular of late. T. Anstey's "The Brass Bottle"2 has a professor who is changed by conjuration to a mule & indulges in antics very similar to those of the long-eared animal in "The Conjurer's Revenge,"3 while J. M. Barrie's "Little White Bird4 is an amplification of part of‸ the machinery of "Sis' Becky's Pickanninny."5 These of course are probably mere coincidences. But they are interesting.
Thanking you again for your encouraging comment & appreciation, I remain
Cordially yours, Chas. W. ChesnuttCorrespondent: Horace Traubel (1858–1919) was an American poet, essayist, and editor of The Conservator, a journal designed to promote Walt Whitman's works and reputation. Traubel was also a dedicated Socialist and one of the founders of the socialist weekly newspaper The Worker. He is best known for being Walt Whitman's literary executor and author of a nine-volume biography of Whitman's final four years (1888–1892), entitled With Walt Whitman in Camden.
1. Between 1901 and 1907, Horace Traubel discussed Chesnutt's writing several times in The Conservator, a monthly magazine he founded and edited for nearly 30 years (1890–1919). See "The Emancipation of a Race" (12, no. 10 [December 1901]: 154–155) and reviews of The Wife of His Youth (12, no. 12 [February 1902]: 188), The Marrow of Tradition (13, no. 3 [May 1902]: 41–42), The Conjure Woman (13, no. 9 [November 1902]: 138–139), The House Behind the Cedars (14, no. 4 [June 1903]: 60), and The Colonel's Dream (18, no. 9 [November 1907]: 141). [back]
2. Published under the pseudonym F. Anstey, The Brass Bottle (1900) is a comedic novel by Thomas Anstey Guthrie (1856–1934), an English journalist and humor novelist known for Vice Versa and for his stories in Punch magazine. [back]
3. Chesnutt published "The Conjurer's Revenge" in the Overland Monthly of June 1889. [back]
4. James Matthew Barrie (1860–1937), best known for Peter Pan, was a Scottish novelist and playwright. His novel Little White Bird was published in 1902 by Hodder & Stoughton and Scribner & Sons. It was also serialized in Scribner's Magazine. The book introduces the character of Peter Pan. [back]
5. Published in The Conjure Woman (1900), "Sis' Becky's Pickaninny" features a lucky rabbit's foot. [back]
