Nights with Uncle Remus

Joel Chandler Harris (December 9, 1848 - July 3, 1908) was an American journalist, fiction writer, and folklorist best known for his collection of Uncle Remus stories. Harris was born in Eatonton, Georgia, where he served as an apprentice on a plantation during his teenage years. He spent the majority of his adult life in Atlanta working as an associate editor at the Atlanta Constitution. Harris led two professional lives: as the editor and journalist known as Joe Harris, he supported a vision of the New South with the editor Henry W. Grady (1880-1889), stressing regional and racial reconciliation after the Reconstruction era. As Joel Chandler Harris, fiction writer and folklorist, he wrote many 'Brer Rabbit' stories from the African-American oral tradition and helped to revolutionize literature in the process.Joel Chandler Harris was born in Eatonton, Georgia in 1848 to Mary Ann Harris, an Irish immigrant. His father, whose identity remains unknown, abandoned Mary Ann and the infant shortly after his birth. The parents had never married; the boy was named Joel after his mother's attending physician, Dr. Joel Branham. Chandler was the name of his mother's uncle.Harris remained self-conscious of his illegitimate birth throughout his life.A prominent physician, Dr. Andrew Reid, gave the Harris family a small cottage to use behind his mansion. Mary Harris worked as a seamstress and helped neighbors with their gardening to support herself and her son. She was an avid reader and instilled in her son a love of language: "My desire to write-to give expression to my thoughts-grew out of hearing my mother read The Vicar of Wakefield."Dr. Reid also paid for Harris' school tuition for several years. In 1856, Joe Harris briefly attended Kate Davidson's School for Boys and Girls, but transferred to Eatonton School for Boys later that year. He had an undistinguished academic record and a habit of truancy. Harris excelled in reading and writing, but was mostly known for his pranks, mischief, and sense of humor. Practical jokes helped Harris cloak his shyness and insecurities about his red hair, Irish ancestry, and illegitimacy, leading to both trouble and a reputation as a leader among the older boys. Not long after taking the newspaper job, Harris began writing the Uncle Remus stories as a serial to "preserve in permanent shape those curious mementoes of a period that will no doubt be sadly misrepresented by historians of the future."The tales were reprinted across the United States, and Harris was approached by publisher D. Appleton and Company to compile them for a book. Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings was published near the end of 1880. Hundreds of newspapers reviewed the best-seller, and Harris received national attention. Of the press and attention Walter Hines Page noted, "Joe Harris does not appreciate Joel Chandler Harris." The Wren's Nest Royalties from the book were modest, but allowed Harris to rent a six-room house in West End, an unincorporated village on the outskirts of Atlanta, to accommodate his growing family. Two years later Harris bought the house and hired the architect George Humphries to transform the farmhouse into a Queen Anne Victorian in the Eastlake style. The home, soon thereafter called The Wren's Nest, was where Harris spent most of his time.Harris preferred to write at the Wren's Nest. He published prodigiously throughout the 1880s and 1890s, trying his hand at novels, children's literature, and a translation of French folklore. Yet he rarely strayed from home and work during this time. He chose to stay close to his family and his gardening. Harris and his wife Essie had seven more children in Atlanta, with a total of six (out of nine) surviving past childhood.By the late 1890s, Harris was tired of the newspaper grind and suffered from health problems, likely stemming from alcoholism...