The House Behind the Cedars

Product Description

In the aftermath of the Civil War, siblings Rena and John Walden seek a better life for themselves by passing as white in their new home state of South Carolina. John’s success as an attorney and marriage to a white Southerner help cement his own place, but Rena’s engagement to John’s best friend brings a new level of scrutiny that threatens to expose them both. As the rewards increase, so does the risk, and ultimately, the color line seems determined to re-exert itself. Charles W. Chesnutt’s masterwork offers a subtle and penetrating look at the insidious nature of Reconstruction-era racism and shows how forcefully that racism separated Americans from their dreams. Revised edition: Previously published as The House Behind the Cedars, this edition of The House Behind the Cedars (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions.

About the Author

Charles Waddell Chesnutt (1858–1932) was an African American activist, educator, lawyer, and writer best known for his prose explorations of race and social identity in the post–Civil War South. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Chesnutt returned with his parents to their native state of North Carolina following the Civil War. He was educated at the Howard School, an institution founded by the Freedmen’s Bureau. Pursuing his interests in literature, foreign languages, music, and law, Chesnutt moved back to Cleveland and established his own prosperous court-reporting firm. It was Chesnutt’s passion for social reform through writing that occupied the remainder of his life, beginning with the short story “The Goophered Grapevine”―the first work of fiction by an African American writer to be published by Atlantic Monthly. Chesnutt was the author of two short-story collections, numerous essays, a biography of Frederick Douglass, and eight novels, five of which were published posthumously.