In the title story, a respected man of mixed race in a Northern city, about to marry into the society he has built, is visited by an old woman searching for the husband she lost in slavery. The other stories range from the pathos of “The Sheriff’s Children” to the comedy of “Uncle Wellington’s Wives”, and this edition adds a selection of Chesnutt’s essays on race.
Chesnutt’s 1899 collection looks at prejudice within and across racial lines with unusual clarity and irony. Download the free EPUB.