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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: March 1, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Country Gentleman

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: March 1, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Congregationalist

[Review of Frederick Douglass]

  • Date: March 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Book Reviews

[Review of Frederick Douglass]

  • Date: March 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Cram's Magazine

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: March 12, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Argonaut

[Review of Frederick Douglass]

  • Date: March 15, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Christian Endeavor World

[Review of The Wife of His Youh]

  • Date: March 17, 1900
  • Creator(s): Gilder, Jeannette L.
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Harper's Bazaar

[Review of Frederick Douglass]

  • Date: April 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Critic

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: April 12, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Christian Endeavor World

Charles W. Chesnutt's Stories

  • Date: June 1900
  • Creator(s): Howells, William Dean
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Current Literature

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: June 1900
  • Creator(s): Wells, Benjamin W.
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Forum.

A Year's Best Books

  • Date: June 30, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: New York Times Review of Books

A New Delineator of Southern Life

  • Date: July 1900
  • Creator(s): Hudson, William
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Self Culture Magazine

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: July 14, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Colored American

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: July 21, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Courier–Journal

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: August 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Methodist Magazine and Review

[Review of The Conjure Woman]

  • Date: September 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Independent

Short-Hand in North Carolina

  • Date: October 27, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Charlotte Observer

[Mr. Charles W. Chesnutt]

  • Date: October 29, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anon.
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Current Literature

Charles W. Chesnutt's Color Line Novel, "The House Behind the Cedars"

  • Date: October 31, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Boston Evening Transcript

[Review of Frederick Douglass]

  • Date: November 1900
  • Creator(s): Hapgood, Hutchins
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Bookman

Race Problem in a Novel

  • Date: November 10, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Chicago Daily Tribune

The Mixture of Blood

  • Date: November 11, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Denver Times

New Novels

  • Date: November 11, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Illustrated Buffalo Express

An Issue in the Race Problem

  • Date: November 11, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Detroit Free Press

A Story of Love and Race Prejudice

  • Date: November 16, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Philadelphia Record

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: November 17, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Colored American

[Review of The House Behind the Cedars]

  • Date: November 18, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Providence Sunday Journal

A Difficult Theme

  • Date: November 21, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Boston Journal

The House Behind the Cedars

  • Date: 25 Nov 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Bulletin

[Review of The House Behind the Cedars]

  • Date: November 25, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Worcester Spy

[Review of The House Behind the Cedars]

  • Date: November 27, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Peoria Evening Star

[Review of The House Behind the Cedars]

  • Date: November 28, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Zion's Herald

[Review of The House Behind the Cedars]

  • Date: December 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Book News

[Review of The House Behind the Cedars]

  • Date: December 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Critic

[Review of The House Behind the Cedars]

  • Date: December 1900
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Literary Era

[Review of The House Behind the Cedars]

  • Date: December 1, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Chicago Banker

[Review of The House Behind the Cedars]

  • Date: December 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: World's Work

[Review of The House Behind the Cedars]

  • Date: December 1900
  • Creator(s): A. E. H.
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Chautauquan

[Review of The House Behind the Cedars]

  • Date: December 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Southern Workman

[Review of The House Behind the Cedars]

  • Date: December 1, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Living Age

[Review of The House Behind the Cedars]

  • Date: December 1, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Congregationalist

[Review of The House Behind the Cedars]

  • Date: December 1, 1900
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Churchman

A Negro's Book

  • Date: December 2, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Pittsburg Post

[Review of The House Behind the Cedars]

  • Date: December 4, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Holyoke Daily Transcript

[Review of The House Behind the Cedars]

  • Date: December 4, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Lowell Daily Courier

In the Realm of Fiction

  • Date: December 6, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Watchman

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: December 8, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Congregationalist

[Review of The House Behind the Cedars]

  • Date: December 12, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: New York Press

[Review of The House Behind the Cedars]

  • Date: December 13, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Public Ledger