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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: February 22, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Interior

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: January 21, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Boston Courier

[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: December 19, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Hartford Daily Times

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: December 10, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Los Angeles Herald

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: December 23, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Churchman

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: January 2, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Chicago Chronicle

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: January 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Southern Farm Magazine

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

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

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: December 1, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Burlington Hawk-Eye

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

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

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: December 15, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Index

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

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

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

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: February 3, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Indianapolis News

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: December 30, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Gazette

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

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

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: December 17, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Springfield Sunday Republican

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: December 17, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Illustrated Buffalo Express

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: December 6, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Zion's Herald

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: December 17, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Times

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: January 1, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Topeka State Journal

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: February 3, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Brooklyn Daily Times

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: February 2,1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Cleveland World

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: January 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Literary Era

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: February 3, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Philadelphia Press

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: December 13, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Portland Daily Advertiser

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: December 10, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Bulletin

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

  • Date: December 17, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Daily Register

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

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

[Review of The Wife of His Youth]

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

American Biographies for Busy Men

  • Date: December 17, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Los Angeles Times

Among the Superstitious

  • Date: August 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Current Literature

Another Beacon Biography

  • Date: December 25, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Chicago Chronicle

Author Wins Spingarn Medal

  • Date: June 14, 1928
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The New York Times

Biography in miniature

  • Date: February 1, 1900
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Dial

Books of all Sorts and Kinds now Flood the Literary Mart

  • Date: November 19, 1905
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Los Angeles Herald

A Bundle of New Novels

  • Date: November 17, 1901
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Providence Daily Journal

C. W. Chesnutt, Negro Author, Dies

  • Date: November 16, 1932
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The New York Times

Charles W. Chesnutt's Books

  • Date: February 1, 1902
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Appeal

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

Charles Waddell Chestnut (sic)

  • Date: 1919
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: National Cyclopedia of the Colored Race

A Chesnutt Reprint

  • Date: February 16, 1929
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Public Ledger

Chesnutt's Tales

  • Date: December 16, 1899
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: Boston Evening Transcript

The Colonel's Dream

  • Date: January 20, 1906
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Indianapolis News

The Colonel's Dream

  • Date: September 30, 1905
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The News Leader

The Colonel's Dream

  • Date: October 28, 1905
  • Creator(s): Anonymous
  • Format: periodical
  • Source: The Knoxville Sentinel

The Conjure Woman, a Book to be Read

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

Darkey Superstition

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