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Reviews

This section offers the most complete collection of contemporary reviews of Chesnutt to be found anywhere. We will supplement this collection further as more reviews are located, and we are grateful when users alert us to missing items.

During his lifetime, Chesnutt's works earned publication notices and reviews in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines. Our collection includes reviews published in city newspapers, regional magazines, and national outlets. The collection includes materials from the Black press as well as the White press.

In the late 1990s John M. Freiermuth, then a graduate student in the Department of English, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, collected a large batch of reviews and offered them to project co-editor Stephanie Browner for use on the initial version of the Chesnutt Archive. Since then many more reviews have been located thanks to the increasing availability of historic periodicals through online databases. Samantha Gilmore of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has led the effort to discover and document more reviews, an effort that has vastly increased our ability to study Chesnutt’s early reception.

You can find reviews for specific Chesnutt works here, or browse all reviews below.

Reviews

312 items

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: August, 1898
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Bookman

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: August 13, 1898
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Kansas City Star

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: October 1898
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Bookman

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: March 30, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Waterbury American

A New Afro-American Humorist

  • Date: March 31, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Philadelphia Record

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: April 1, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Saturday Evening Gazette

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: April 1, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Cambridge Tribune

Studies in 'Local Color' and Dialect

  • Date: April 2, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: New York Tribune Illustrated Supplement

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: April 2, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Boston Courier

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: April 2, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Sunday News

Some Recent Light Novels

  • Date: April 2, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Philadelphia Times

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: April 3, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Nebraska State Journal

Plantation Tales

  • Date: April 9, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Morning Times

The Conjure Woman, a Book to be Read

  • Date: April 9, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: April 9, 1899
  • Creator(s): Knight, Lucien L.
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Constitution

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: April 9, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Commercial Appeal

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: April 10, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Cincinnati Times-Star

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: April 10, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Portland Daily Advertiser

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: April 10, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Daily Inter Ocean

Hoodooed

  • Date: April 15, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Baltimore Sun

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: April 15, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Outlook

Conjure Woman Reviews

  • Date: April 15, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anon.
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: New York Times

"The Conjure Woman"

  • Date: Apr. 15, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Boston Beacon

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: April 16, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Los Angeles Herald

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: April 16, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Bulletin

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: April 20, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Gazette

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: April 21, 1899
  • Creator(s): M. L. D.
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: City and State

"The Conjure Woman," Etc.

  • Date: April 22, 1899
  • Creator(s): Alexander, Charles
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Freeman

"The Conjure Woman"

  • Date: April 23, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The St. Paul Globe

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: April 23, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Nashville American

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: April 24, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Indianapolis Journal

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: April 27, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Interior

"The Conjure Woman"

  • Date: April 29, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The St. Paul Dispatch

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: April 29, 1899
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Philadelphia Press

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: Apr. 30, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anon.
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Springfield Sunday Republican

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: April 30, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: San Francisco Chronicle

"The Conjure Woman—Truth is Stranger than Fiction"

  • Date: April 30, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The News and Observer

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: May 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Southern Workman

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: May 1, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Index

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: 4 May 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Public Ledger

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: May 7, 1899
  • Creator(s): Sanborn, Annie W.
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Daily Pioneer Press

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: May 11, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Christian Register

Darkey Superstition

  • Date: May 16, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Rock Island Union

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: May 18, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Congregationalist

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: May 20, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Church Standard

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: May 25, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Christian Advocate

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: June 1899
  • Creator(s): Earle, Mary Tracey
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Book Buyer

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: June 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Book Buyer

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: June 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Bookman

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: June 1, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Nation