Joel Chandler Harris

A remarkable contribution to American literature was made by Joel Chandler Harris in his negro dialect fables, popularly known as "Uncle Remus." Harris was born in 1848 at Eatonton, Georgia, learned the printer's trade and studied law before he settled down to journalism. While editing an Atlanta paper, he prepared for it the sketches which were afterward published in book form as "The Folk-Lore of the Old Plantation" (1880). The welcome with which this was received led to "Nights with Uncle Remus" (1883), "Daddy Jake the Runaway" (1889), and many more sketches. The four-footed hero of these new fables is Brer Rabbit, who, weak as he is, manages by his shrewdness to get ahead of the fox, the wolf and the bear, and other smart and strong folk. In his book, "On the Plantation," Harris tells his early experiences, and in other books he shows his affectionate feeling for the negro as well as the white.