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Charles W. Chesnutt to M. A. De Wolfe Howe, 31 October 1899

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  Chesnutt 64 Brenton St. Cleveland, O., My dear Mr. Howe,

I send you herewith last batch of the body of the Douglass Biog.1 I have chopped it up some, but only as I thought I could improve it; sometimes a sentence has an insidious way of seeming to be right when it will not stand analysis. I have been a little bit particular, for I want these first books of mine to be as good as I can make them —though I do not mean to slight any later ones—I shall go to work on the preface, Chronology & Bibliography and will forward them tomorrow or next day.

Sincerely yours, Chas. W. Chesnutt. M. A. De Wolfe Howe, Esq., Boston, Mass.



Correspondent: M. A. (Mark Antony) De Wolfe Howe (1864–1960) was a biographer, editor, historian, and poet. He held editorial positions on the Youth's Companion (1888-1893, 1899-1913), Atlantic Monthly (1893-1895), Harvard Alumni Bulletin (1913-1919), and Harvard Graduates' Magazine (1917-1918). Chesnutt's Life of Frederick Douglass was published in the series of Beacon Biographies of Eminent Americans, edited by Howe.



1. Chesnutt's biography of Douglass, titled Frederick Douglass, appeared in the Beacon Series of Biographies of Eminent Americans (Boston: Small, Maynard, 1899). It was the first biography of Douglass after Douglass's death, and the first written by an African American.[back]