Charles W. Chesnutt to Editor of the Chicago Defender, 24 March 1922
| 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 |
March 24, 1922.
Editor The Chicago Defender,1
3435 Indiana Avenue,
Chicago, Ill.
Dear Sir:
I wish to thank the Defender and whoever on the staff sent me a cutting from the issue of March 11th, containing the article by Roscoe Simmons,2 headed "The Week," in which he said some nice things about me.3 Also please convey my thanks to Colonel Simmons for the kind words, all of which I wish I merited.
I have been keeping track of "The House Behind the Cedars"4 as it has come out in the Defender, and hope you have found that it added to the interest of the paper.5
Sincerely yours, CWC/FL1. The Chicago Defender, a Black weekly newspaper, was founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott (1870–1940), who was its publisher and editor until his death. From early on, the paper had an anti-segregation, anti-lynching platform, encouraged Blacks to move North, and reached a broad national audience. Chesnutt's The House Behind the Cedars was serialized in the paper in 1921–1922. [back]
2. Roscoe Conkling Simmons (ca.1878–1951) was a Black speaker, journalist and political activist from Mississippi. He was Booker T. Washington's nephew and graduated from the Tuskegee institute in 1899 and worked for the Chicago Defender from 1916 to the mid-1930s and later for the Chicago Tribune. A life-long Republican, he worked for Ohio senator Mark A. Hanna (1837–1904; Senate 1897–1904) in the early 1900s and later served as advisor to three US Presidents. [back]
3. The letter with the clipping has not been located. The comments of journalist Roscoe Conkling Simmons (1881–1951) Chesnutt in his regular column "The Week" from March 11, 1921, Chicago Defender, Part Two: Features and Correspondence, appeared the week following the conclusion of the weekly's serialization of The House Behind the Cedars. There, Simmons exhorts readers to buy Chesnutt's books and provides a short biography, praising Chesnutt as "writing with a pen that even Dickens could not improve on" and highlighting that he has a reputation as "the greatest living court reporter," and is therefore as a writer "accurate; reliable; of sharpest intellect; thorough; up and doing and got[sic] a hold on human nature" (13). [back]
4. The House Behind the Cedars (Houghton Mifflin, 1900) was Chesnutt's first published novel. House evolved over more than a decade from a short story, "Rena Walden," first drafted in the late 1880s. It was the only novel by Chesnutt to be serialized, once in 1900-1901 in the monthly Self Culture and again in 1921-1922 in the Black weekly Chicago Defender. House was also his only novel to be adapted to film (1924 and 1932). [back]
5. While possibly prompted by discussions about a combined serialization and movie-rights contract involving Micheaux Film Corporation and the Chicago Defender in the summer of 1921, Chesnutt ultimately decided on a separate contract with the Defender for the serialization rights of The House Behind the Cedars for $125.00, of which $31.25 (25%) went to Houghton Mifflin. The novel was serialized in 19 weekly parts from October 29, 1921, to March 4, 1922 (part 1 on pages 1 and 8; parts 2–11 on page 8 only; and parts 12–19 on page 2 of the weekly paper's new "Feature Section"). [back]
2. Roscoe Conkling Simmons (ca.1878–1951) was a Black speaker, journalist and political activist from Mississippi. He was Booker T. Washington's nephew and graduated from the Tuskegee institute in 1899 and worked for the Chicago Defender from 1916 to the mid-1930s and later for the Chicago Tribune. A life-long Republican, he worked for Ohio senator Mark A. Hanna (1837–1904; Senate 1897–1904) in the early 1900s and later served as advisor to three US Presidents. [back]
3. The letter with the clipping has not been located. The comments of journalist Roscoe Conkling Simmons (1881–1951) Chesnutt in his regular column "The Week" from March 11, 1921, Chicago Defender, Part Two: Features and Correspondence, appeared the week following the conclusion of the weekly's serialization of The House Behind the Cedars. There, Simmons exhorts readers to buy Chesnutt's books and provides a short biography, praising Chesnutt as "writing with a pen that even Dickens could not improve on" and highlighting that he has a reputation as "the greatest living court reporter," and is therefore as a writer "accurate; reliable; of sharpest intellect; thorough; up and doing and got[sic] a hold on human nature" (13). [back]
4. The House Behind the Cedars (Houghton Mifflin, 1900) was Chesnutt's first published novel. House evolved over more than a decade from a short story, "Rena Walden," first drafted in the late 1880s. It was the only novel by Chesnutt to be serialized, once in 1900-1901 in the monthly Self Culture and again in 1921-1922 in the Black weekly Chicago Defender. House was also his only novel to be adapted to film (1924 and 1932). [back]
5. While possibly prompted by discussions about a combined serialization and movie-rights contract involving Micheaux Film Corporation and the Chicago Defender in the summer of 1921, Chesnutt ultimately decided on a separate contract with the Defender for the serialization rights of The House Behind the Cedars for $125.00, of which $31.25 (25%) went to Houghton Mifflin. The novel was serialized in 19 weekly parts from October 29, 1921, to March 4, 1922 (part 1 on pages 1 and 8; parts 2–11 on page 8 only; and parts 12–19 on page 2 of the weekly paper's new "Feature Section"). [back]
