William B. Pratt to Charles W. Chesnutt, 15 December 1921
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HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
SYNDICATE BUREAU
W. B. PRATT MANAGER
4 PARK STREET BOSTON
FICTION
BIOGRAPHY
NATURE SERIES
CHILDREN'S STORIES
JUVENILE VERSE
SPECIAL ARTICLES
December 15, 1921.
Mr. Charles W. Chesnutt,
1106 Williamson Building,
Cleveland, Ohio.
Dear Mr. Chesnutt:
Thank you for the check for $25.50 enclosed in your letter of December 12, as our share in the returns1 from the Micheaux Film Corporation2 for "The House Behind the Cedars."3
Very truly yours, W. B. Pratt Manager, Syndicate Bureau. GCorrespondent: William Brace Pratt (1886–1961) was a White Bostonian whose mother was a daughter of Henry Oscar Houghton, co-founder of Houghton Mifflin Company. He graduated from Yale in 1906 and worked for Houghton Mifflin's Special Sales department from 1907 to 1929; as the manager of the syndicate bureau, he frequently correspondended with Chesnutt about the film rights to his works in the 1920s.
1. Chesnutt came to an arrangement regarding the movie-rights contract for his novel The House Behind the Cedars with Micheaux Film Corporation, which produced a series of five $100.00 promissory ("cognovit") notes, each due on the 15th of the month (September to January). These were paid with delays and incurred additional interest and penalties: the September note was paid on October 1; the October note around November 13; November's on December 4; and December's not until May 1922. The last note was not paid at all. Chesnutt declined several offers of stocks or bonds in the company in trade for the notes, and passed 25% of each payment on to Houghton Mifflin Company. [back]
2. The Micheaux Film Corporation began in 1919 as the Micheaux Book and Film Company. Founded by Black novelist, film director, and film producer Oscar Micheaux (1884–1951), it was based in Chicago, with offices in New York City and Roanoke, Virginia, and became the most successful Black-owned film company of the 20th century. In the 1920s and '30s, Micheaux produced at least three dozen films featuring Black actors and themes he believed to be of particular interest to Black audiences, three of them based loosely on Chesnutt's work. In 1928, the company voluntarily filed for bankruptcy, reorganized, and survived until 1940. Most of the films are lost. [back]
3. The House Behind the Cedars (Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 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]
