Nights With Uncle Remus

Harris, Joel Chandler, 1848-1908Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.1

Word count: 571K words
Chapters: 58

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Nights With Uncle Remus by Joel Chandler HarrisAuthor: Harris, Joel Chandler, 1848-1908,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jan 26, 2008

Editor's review

Nights With Uncle Remus is a story collection by Joel Chandler Harris, drawn from the oral traditions of the American South. Uncle Remus's animal fables are witty and humorous, with vivid figures such as Br'er Rabbit, preserving the rhythm of dialect narration and folk wisdom. It is both a window into nineteenth-century Southern American narrative literature and a sample for studying how folk tales are shaped into written literature. Read it as a literary arrangement of folk tales, noting the frame narrative and oral tone; at the same time, stay conscious of the racial and historical context it involves, and read it with background knowledge. It suits readers interested in folklore, American literary history, and the craft of storytelling.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General readers interested in Southern American folk tales and oral tradition
Students of folklore or American literary history who need primary samples
Story lovers who enjoy animal fables and frame narratives
Researchers interested in dialect writing and narrative tone

Not a good fit for

Readers looking for fast-paced modern fiction
Readers uninterested in the nineteenth-century Southern racial context and unwilling to learn the background
Beginners with weak English who struggle with dialect spelling

Reading tips

Read the preface or introduction first to understand Harris's arrangement background and story sources, then move into the main text.
Treat the book as a short-story collection for bedtime or commuting, reading one or two pieces at a time to feel the oral rhythm.
Do not agonize over dialect spelling word by word; grasp the plot and characters' tone first, then revisit the linguistic features.
After reading, consult related folklore research to understand the relationship between adaptation and collection.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a fairy-tale collection for children?

Not entirely. It is arranged from folk animal tales, and children can enjoy the stories, but the dialect narration, frame structure, and historical context are better suited to adult readers or guided adolescents.

There is a lot of English dialect spelling; what if it is hard to read?

Do not parse every spelling; follow the plot and characters' tone first. You can use an audiobook or read the introduction for the gist, then return to appreciate the dialect's narrative effect.

Do I need to understand Southern American history first?

Some basic background helps. Understanding nineteenth-century Southern oral tradition and racial context helps readers distinguish folk wisdom from the limitations of the era.

Is it suitable for classroom use?

Yes, but with teacher guidance. It works as supplementary material for folklore, narratology, or American literary history, accompanied by background discussion.

Comments

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About the author

Harris, Joel Chandler, 1848-1908 Author

Joel Chandler Harris (1848–1908) was an American writer best known for collecting and retelling the folk tales of the American South during the plantation era. His representative works revolve around the narrator Uncle Remus, including Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, Nights with Uncle Remus, and Told by Uncle Remus, in which the figure of Brer Rabbit became especially well known. Told in dialect and framed as animal fables, these stories preserved oral tradition and left a lasting influence on later children's literature and Southern American writing. The collection also includes On the Plantation and Stories of Georgia, which touch on coming-of-age themes and local history. Public information is limited, so biographical details are not elaborated here.