An emotional tour de force, Charles W. Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition (1901) unfolds against the backdrop of the only successful coup d’état in US history—the 1898 Wilmington Massacre. The novel combines domestic dramas, political scheming, and social commentary as it documents white supremacists’ violent “redemption” of a majority Black city. By following two interrelated families—the white Carterets and the Black Millers—through these harrowing events, The Marrow of Tradition offers intimate insights into the complexities of life on the color line. Equal parts comedic, romantic, political, and tragic, the novel probes the depths and artifice of race relations in the United States.
This Broadview Edition provides thorough annotation, an up-to-date introduction, and supplementary documents on the novel’s composition, reception, and historical context.
Comments
“An excellent edition of Charles W. Chesnutt’s great novel of 1901, which is especially useful for anyone interested in reading The Marrow of Tradition in its broad historical and cultural contexts. R.J. Boutelle’s introduction is eloquent and informative. The primary materials from the Wilmington massacre of 1898 in particular help us to better understand Chesnutt’s aims in the novel—and are chilling.” — Robert S. Levine, Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland
“Chesnutt wrote The Marrow of Tradition in the immediate aftermath of the 1898 Wilmington massacre, and the novel still carries the heat of that proximity—a domestic melodrama that darkens into an account of a city’s government overthrown by armed white supremacists. Boutelle’s introduction is finely pitched, laying out Chesnutt’s biography and the wreckage of Reconstruction with clarity, while his annotations work well to untangle references or period terms exactly where a reader might stumble. The Appendices gather and hone primary voices instead of paraphrasing them, setting Ida B. Wells’s accounting of lynching against Alfred Moore Waddell’s own justification of the coup he led, for example, to help readers confront the distance between what happened and what the perpetrators claimed had happened. Few American novels detonate with this much force, and this edition finally gives Marrow the classroom life it has long deserved.” — Susanna Ashton, Clemson University
“Boutelle has produced a rich and deeply researched edition of The Marrow of Tradition that will prove indispensable for students and scholars alike. The wealth of primary and secondary materials he has selected to accompany the novel along with Boutelle’s own keen insights into Chesnutt’s writings brilliantly illuminate a complex novel whose importance has only continued to grow in the twenty-first century. As Boutelle argues, Marrow is a novel not just for Chesnutt’s times but also for ours. I look forward to using this worthy edition in my courses. We needed this book.” — Jennifer James, George Washington University
