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[Review of The Conjure Woman]

The Collection of Short Stories by Charles W. Chesnutt published under the title of "The Conjure Woman" (Houghton, Mifflin & Co), are really delightful bits of humor couched in a negro dialect as seductive as that of "Uncle Remus" or Thomas Nelson Page. On the whole, the best is "The Goophered Grapevine," in which a grape grower from Ohio who has gone to North Carolina for the sake of his wife's health hears from an old negro the extraordinary story of the magic of an Aun' Peggy. The stories are racy, of the soil and the dialect is rich and unctuous, without being of repellant difficulty.