Joel Chandler Harris, Folklorist [Paperback]

STELLA BREWER BROOKES (1903-1993) was an authority on Joel Chandler Harris who taught at Clarke College in Atlanta for more than forty years. Her brother was the noted folklore scholar John Mason Brewer.Stella Brewer Brookes's study of the life and work of Joel Chandler Harris was published in 1950. Brookes examines how Harris drew on his extensive knowledge of African American folklore and culture to create the characters in his work. Brookes classifies the Uncle Remus books under seven major categories: trickster tales, other "creeturs," myths, supernatural tales, proverbs, dialect, and songs.

The lovable Joel Chandler Harris gets his due in this book. How he got his story is here made into a very interesting story. It strictly belongs on the Uncle Remus shelf.

Perceptive and humane herself, no better interpreter of Uncle Remus as folklorist could possibly be found than Dr. Stella Brewer Brookes. Her systematic analysis of the material as Trickster Tales, Myths, Proverbs, Sayings, and Folksong serves to enhance the essential cleverness and poignancy of Harris' renderings of these plantation tales. Her book will bring a new appreciation of Harris to the general reading public: it should be in every library.

Stella Brewer Brookes' Joel Chandler Harris-Folklorist meets a long existent need in the study of Southern folklore and literature. Joel Chandler Harris had an ear for dialect, but he had also what every great folklorist must have, namely, an understanding of and a spiritual kinship with the people whose folklore he was expressing. Mrs. Brookes' book is a very fine contribution to folklore literature.

We cannot well have too great a body of affectionate tribute to Joel Chandler Harris by those competent to appraise his talents, and we welcome a volume such as Mrs. Brookes'. . . . In classifying the stories into trickster tales, myths, supernatural tales, proverbs,l³*