The Negro in Literature and Art in the United States Part 9

Then, in truth, we shall have the Promised Land. But until that day comes let those who mold our ideals and set the standards of our art in fiction at least be honest with themselves and independent. Ignorance we may for a time forgive; but a man has only himself to blame if he insists on not seeing the sunrise in the new day.

_2. STUDY OF BIBLIOGRAPHY_

The following bibliography, while aiming at a fair degree of completeness for books and articles coming within the scope of this volume, can not be finally complete, because so to make it would be to cover very largely the great subject of the Negro Problem, only one phase of which is here considered. The aim is constantly to restrict the discussion to that of the literary and artistic life of the Negro; and books primarily on economic, social, or theological themes, however interesting within themselves, are generally not included. Booker T.

Was.h.i.+ngton may seem to be an exception to this; but the general importance of the books of this author would seem to demand their inclusion, especially as some of them touch directly on the subject of present interest.

I

BOOKS BY SIX MOST PROMINENT AUTHORS

WHEATLEY, PHILLIS (Mrs. Peters).

Poem on the Death of the Reverend George Whitefield. Boston, 1770.

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. London and Boston, 1773.

Elegy Sacred to the Memory of Dr. Samuel Cooper. Boston, 1784.

Liberty and Peace. Boston, 1784.

Letters, edited by Charles Deane. Boston, 1864.

Note.--The bibliography of the work of Phillis Wheatley is now a study within itself. t.i.tles just enumerated are only for what may be regarded as the most important original sources. The important volume, that of 1773, is now very rare and valuable.

Numerous reprints have been made, among them the following: Philadelphia, 1774; Philadelphia, 1786; Albany, 1793; Philadelphia, 1801; Walpole, N. H., 1802; Hartford, 1804; Halifax, 1813; "New England," 1816; Denver, 1887; Philadelphia, 1909 (the last being the accessible reprint by R. R. and C. C.

Wright, A. M. E. Book Concern). Note also Memoir of Phillis Wheatley, by B. B. Thatcher, Boston, 1834; and Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley (memoir by Margaretta Matilda Odell), Boston, 1834, 1835, and 1838, the three editions in rapid succession being due to the anti-slavery agitation. Not the least valuable part of Deane's 1864 edition of the Letters is the sketch of Phillis Wheatley, by Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, which it contains. This was first printed in the _Boston Daily Advertiser_, Dec. 21, 1863. It is brief, but contains several facts not to be found elsewhere. Duyckinck's Cyclopaedia of American Literature (1855 and 1866) gave a good review and reprinted from the _Pennsylvania Magazine_ the correspondence with Was.h.i.+ngton, and the poem to Was.h.i.+ngton, also "Liberty and Peace." Also important for reference is Oscar Wegelin's Compilation of the t.i.tles of Volumes of Verse--Early American Poetry, New York, 1903. Note also The Life and Works of Phillis Wheatley, by G. Herbert Renfro, edited by Leila Amos Pendleton, Was.h.i.+ngton, 1916. The whole matter of bibliography has recently been exhaustively studied in Heartman's Historical Series, in beautiful books of limited editions, as follows: (1) Phillis Wheatley: A Critical Attempt and a Bibliography of Her Writings, by Charles Fred Heartman, New York, 1915; (2) Phillis Wheatley: Poems and Letters. First Collected Edition. Edited by Charles Fred Heartman, with an Appreciation by Arthur A.

Schomburg, New York, 1915; (3) Six Broadsides relating to Phillis Wheatley, New York, 1915. These books are of the first order of importance, and yet they awaken one or two questions.

One wonders why "To Maecenas," "On Virtue," and "On Being Brought from Africa to America," all very early work, were placed near the end of the poems in "Poems and Letters"; nor is the relation between "To a Clergyman on the Death of His Lady,"

and "To the Rev. Mr. Pitkin on the Death of His Lady," made clear, the two poems, evidently different versions of the same subject, being placed pages apart. The great merit of the book, however, is that it adds to "Poems on Various Subjects" the four other poems not generally accessible: (1) To His Excellency, George Was.h.i.+ngton; (2) On Major-General Lee; (3) Liberty and Peace; (4) An Elegy Sacred to the Memory of Dr.

Samuel Cooper. The first of Heartman's three volumes gives a list of books containing matter on Phillis Wheatley. To this may now be added the following magazine articles, none of which contain matter primarily original: (1) _Christian Examiner_, Vol. XVI, p. 169 (Review by W. J. Snelling of the 1834 edition of the poems); (2) _Knickerbocker_, Vol. IV, p. 85; (3) _North American Review_, Vol. 68, p. 418 (by Mrs. E. F. Ellet); (4) _London Athenaeum_ for 1835, p. 819 (by Rev. T. Flint); (5) _Historical Magazine_ for 1858, p. 178; (6) _Catholic World_, Vol. 39, p. 484, July, 1884; (7) _Chautauquan_, Vol. 18, p.

599, February, 1894 (by Pamela McArthur Cole).

DUNBAR, PAUL LAURENCE.

Life and Works, edited by Lida Keck Wiggins. J. L. Nichols & Co., Naperville, Ill., 1907.

The following, with the exception of the sketch at the end, were all published by Dodd, Mead & Co., New York.

_Poems:_

Lyrics of Lowly Life, 1896.

Lyrics of the Hearthside, 1899.

Lyrics of Love and Laughter, 1903.

Lyrics of Suns.h.i.+ne and Shadow, 1905.

Complete Poems, 1913.

_Specially Ill.u.s.trated Volumes of Poems_:

Poems of Cabin and Field, 1899.

Candle-Lightin' Time, 1901.

When Malindy Sings, 1903.

Li'l' Gal, 1904.

Howdy, Honey, Howdy, 1905.

Joggin' Erlong, 1906.

Speakin' o' Christmas, 1914.

_Novels_:

The Uncalled, 1896.

The Love of Landry, 1900.

The Fanatics, 1901.

The Sport of the G.o.ds, 1902.

_Stories and Sketches_:

Folks from Dixie, 1898.

The Strength of Gideon, and Other Stories, 1900.

In Old Plantation Days, 1903.

The Heart of Happy Hollow, 1904.

Uncle Eph's Christmas, a one-act musical sketch, Was.h.i.+ngton, 1900.

CHESNUTT, CHARLES WADDELL.

Frederick Dougla.s.s: A Biography. Small, Maynard & Co., Boston, 1899.

The Conjure Woman (stories). Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1899.

The Wife of His Youth, and Other Stories of the Color-line.

Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1899.

The House Behind the Cedars (novel). Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1900.

The Marrow of Tradition (novel). Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1901.

The Colonel's Dream (novel). Doubleday, Page & Co., New York, 1905.

DUBOIS, WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT.

Suppression of the African Slave-Trade. Longmans, Green & Co., New York, 1896 (now handled through Harvard University Press, Cambridge).

The Philadelphia Negro. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1899.

The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches. A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1903.

The Negro in the South (with Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton). Geo. W.