Charles W. Chesnutt and The Conjure Woman

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The Conjure Woman, by Charles W. Chesnutt. Cambridge: Printed at the Riverside Press, 1899. First edition, large paper edition, limited to 150 numbered copies. Designed by Bruce Rogers. Our copy is number 149. The colophon is inscribed to Dr. H.M. Marvin by Bruce Rogers and reads “This is one of the earliest books I made at Riverside.”

Charles Chesnutt was born on June 20, 1858 in Cleveland, Ohio to free African Americans, and moved with his family to Fayetteville, NC in 1866. He worked as a schoolteacher in both Fayetteville and in Charlotte, NC, but moved back to Cleveland in the early 1880s. In August 1887, Chesnutt published “The Goophered Grapevine” in the Atlantic Monthly, the first work by an Afro-American to be published in that important literary magazine. This story was to become the first story in his celebrated work The Conjure Woman, published by Houghton-Mifflin in 1899. The seven short stories of The Conjure Woman were set in “Patesville” NC. Chesnutt drew on his time in Fayetteville using local traditions and dialect, but also creating tales dealing with conjuring, a kind of African hoodoo magic. Framed much like Joel Chandler Harris’ “Uncle Remus” stories, Chesnutt’s tales use two adults, rather than Harris’ children, as those to whom the tales are told. “Uncle Julius McAdoo” is the story-teller weaving tales including “Po’Sandy, “Mars Jeem’s Nightmare,” and “The Conjurer’s Revenge.” Chesnutt published additional short stories and also three novels until 1905, after which he wrote primarily articles and essays. Known for his work for black political rights, in 1928 he was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP “for his pioneer work as a literary artist, depicting the life and struggle of Americans of Negro descent.”