"To Be an Author": Letters of Charles W. Chesnutt, 1889-1905 (Princeton Legacy Library, 354)

Charles Waddell Chesnutt declared his intentions in this 1891 entry in journal: "Every time I read a good novel, I want to write one. It is the dream of my life- -to be an author." Less than a decade later, he had realized his dream. It was, however, short-lived; Chesnutt published his last novel in 1905, and only a few stories thereafter. Still, as one of the first blacks to earn his living as a writer before the Harlem Renaissance, he remains an important figure in American literature. This collection of letters, including correspondence with Booker T. Washington and the Southern novelist George Washington Cable (an early mentor), is essential for anyone curious about the roots of black writing.