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Evaluation of The Conjure Woman

 * More specifics about the seven stories within the collection could be added, minimally story titles.
 * Much of the article's phrasing is somewhat awkward. The sentence "The stories' basis in folk traditions earned publication of the collection." is phrased badly.
 * Could provide more context for this short story collection vs. other works; mentions a character idealizes the south but not that Chestnutt is resisting that viewpoint intentionally.
 * The article does not talk about reception of the collection, which I think is important.
 * The article is neutral in tone.
 * There are only a few sources, more sources can/should be added.
 * The links work, and they are paraphrased as not to plagiarize.
 * It is part of the project Wiki Novels. It is a stub-class article according to that project and doesn't have an importance rating.

Article Assignment
Questions for Reviewer:


 * Is the explanation of why The Conjure Woman is different from other conjure/folk tales clear?
 * Would it be helpful to have an example/summary of one story? A summary of "The Gophered Grapevine" can be pieced together via scholarly articles, but not sure if it is excessive.
 * Are there any instances of awkward word choice or ambiguous phrasing?

= The Conjure Woman = The Conjure Woman is an 1899 collection of short stories by American writer Charles W. Chesnutt. It is Chesnutt's first book, and an important work of post-Civil War African American literature.

Background
Charles Chesnutt wrote the first of the conjure tales, “The Gophered Grapevine,” in 1887. It was published in The Atlantic Monthly. That same year, Chesnutt traveled to Boston and met with Walter Hines Page and other employees of Houghton, Mifflin, and Company publishing house. Page asked Chesnutt to forward some of his writing. This was the beginning of a multiple-year correspondence between Page and Chesnutt.

Chesnutt wrote three more conjure tales between 1887 and 1889, two of which would eventually appear in The Conjure Woman. "Po’ Sandy" was originally printed in The Atlantic Monthly in 1888, and "The Conjurer's Revenge" was published in Overland Monthly in June 1889. In March of 1898, Page wrote Chesnutt informing him that Houghton Mifflin would consider publishing a short story collection of conjure stories with "the same original quality" as "The Goophered Grapevine" and "Po' Sandy." Over the next two months, Chesnutt wrote six additional conjure stories, which he sent to Page. Four of these stories—"Mars Jeems's Nightmare," "Sis' Becky's Pickaninny," "The Gray Wolf's Ha'nt," and "Hot-Foot Hannibal," were selected for inclusion in the collection. "Hot-Foot Hannibal" also appeared in the January 1899 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. In March 1899, The Conjure Woman was published.

List of Stories

 * "The Goophered Grapevine"
 * "Po' Sandy"
 * "Mars Jeems's Nightmare"
 * "The Conjurer's Revenge"
 * "Sis' Becky's Pickaninny"
 * "The Gray Wolf's Ha'nt"
 * "Hot-Foot Hannibal"

Content
Every story contains the same frame narrative structure and main characters in which Uncle Julius McAdoo, a former slave, shares a conjure tale with a white northern couple. The couple, John and Annie, meet Uncle Julius when they are considering moving south for Annie’s health and visit in search of property. John is captivated by the pre-Civil War South and wants to own a vineyard. Each story opens with a monologue from John's point of view, which establishes the setting and John's idealistic perspective. The bulk of each story is Uncle Julius's retelling of a conjure tale. Uncle Julius is a former slave and trickster figure whose accounts clash with John's ideas. The tales involve other former slaves, some from the McAdoo plantation with Julius and some from nearby plantations, and derived from African American folktales and hoodoo conjuring traditions. Each story contains a conjurer, most notably Aun' Peggy in "Po' Sandy," "Mars Jeems's Nightmare," "Sis' Becky's Pickaninny," and "Hot Foot Hannibal." In "The Conjurer's Revenge" and "The Gray Wolf's Ha'nt," he discusses the activities of free black conjure men. After Uncle Julius concludes, Annie comments on the veracity or contents of the tale.

The Conjure Woman differs from other post-Civil War conjure tales and plantation writing in its condemnation of the plantation regime. Typical plantation literature relied on racial stereotypes, portraying an Edenic relationship where magnanimous white slaveholders provide for infantile blacks. Although Chesnutt follows the same general structure, with a friendly former slave recounting a story to white northerners, the stories Uncle Julius tells are not wistful. They revised the classical plantation narrative and contradicted the dominant racial discourse of the late-nineteenth and twentieth century, depicting black resistance and survival within white culture. Despite their enslavement, Uncle Julius and other slaves leverage power in exchanges of information, favors, or conjuring, and demonstrate their intelligence and person-hood through plots of self-gain and sometimes revenge.

Reception
The Conjure Woman was reviewed over seventy times and received mostly positive reviews. It sold so well that Houghton Mifflin released two more books by Chesnutt the following year.

In 1926, the book was adapted into a silent film titled The Conjure Woman by Oscar Micheaux.