The Heart Of Happy Hollow

'The Heart of Happy Hollow' is a collection of short stories written by Paul Laurence Dunbar. A total of sixteen stories can be found within the pages of this book, all weaved together under the same needlepoint—what life was like as an African American after the American Civil War. Featured titles include 'The Scapegoat', 'One Christmas at Shiloh', and 'The Mission of Mr. Scatters'.

Praised by The New York Times as "a true singer of the people -- white or black," Paul Laurence Dunbar published this short story collection in 1904, two years before his untimely death. The son of freed slaves, Dunbar was best known for his dialect pieces as well as distinguished for his poetry and prose in standard English. These sixteen tales of the daily lives of African Americans in the post-Civil War South examine the promise of northward migration, the horrors of lynching, and the complexity of the relationships between former slaves and masters. Highlights include "The Scapegoat," concerning a lawyer who falls prey to envious rivals; "The Mission of Mr. Scatters," the tale of a con man brought to justice; and "Old Abe's Conversion," a thought-provoking look at generational differences in religious practice.

A historic collection of perceptive tales from a luminary of nineteenth-century literature First published in 1904, The Heart of Happy Hollow features sixteen short stories that provide rare glimpses into the lives of African Americans after the Civil War. Through characters ranging from schemers to preachers, Paul Laurence Dunbar crafted a rare snapshot of long-lost communities and their poignant sensibilities. An author who achieved remarkable versatility, he draws on language that is by turns folksy and formal, putting forth controversial vernacular dialects as easily as he delivers a hauntingly poetic scene. In this collection, readers meet an influential entrepreneur who must navigate a treacherous political landscape; a Southern spiritual leader who must learn to accept the mores of his son, who was educated in the North; a reporter who restores hope in Santa Claus to a group of destitute siblings; and a host of other unique men and women giving voice to timeless themes.Dunbar’s work has deservingly experienced a recent revival among commercial and scholarly audiences alike, and noted scholar Eleanor Alexander, author of the critically acclaimed biography Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow: The Courtship and Marriage of Paul Laurence Dunbar and Alice Ruth Moore further contextualizes Dunbar’s contributions to American letters. A captivating read, The Heart of Happy Hollow will introduce more book lovers to this revered storyteller and visionary.

Happy Hollow; are you wondering where it is? Wherever Negroes colonise in the cities or villages, north or south, wherever the hod carrier, the porter, and the waiter are the society men of the town; wherever the picnic and the excursion are the chief summer diversion, and the revival the winter time of repentance, wherever the cheese cloth veil obtains at a wedding, and the little white hearse goes by with black mourners in the one carriage behind, there--there--is Happy Hollow. Wherever laughter and tears rub elbows day by day, and the spirit of labour and laziness shake hands, there--there--is Happy Hollow, and of some of it may the following pages show the heart.