Joel Chandler Harris

Joel Chandler Harris (December 9,1848 – July 3, 1908) was an American journalist born in Eatonton, Georgia who wrote the Uncle Remus stories.

'Roas' me, Brer Fox' sezee, 'but don't fling me in dat brier-patch,' sezee.

Quotes

• Brer Fox, he lay low.
  • Legends of the old Plantation (1886), "The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story".

• Brer Rabbit keep on axin' 'im, en de Tar-Baby, she keep on sayin' nothin', twel present'y Brer Rabbit draw back wid his fis', he did, en blip he tuck 'er side er de head. Right dar's whar he broke his merlasses jug. His fis' stuck, en he can't pull loose. De tar hilt 'im.
  • Legends of the old Plantation (1886), "The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story".

• 'I don't keer w'at you do wid me, Brer Fox,' sezee, 'so you don't fling me in dat brier-patch. Roas' me, Brer Fox' sezee, 'but don't fling me in dat brier-patch,' sezee.
  • Legends of the Old Plantation (1886), "How Mr. Rabbit was too sharp for Mr. Fox".

• Ez soshubble ez a baskit er kittens.
  • Legends of the old Plantation (1886).

Brer Rabbit keep on axin' 'im, en de Tar-Baby, she keep on sayin' nothin', twel present'y Brer Rabbit draw back wid his fis', he did, en blip he tuck 'er side er de head.

• Lazy fokes's stummucks don't git tired.
  • Plantation Proverbs.

• Jay-bird don't rob his own nes'.
  • Plantation Proverbs.

• Licker talks mighty loud w'en it gits loose from de jug.
  • Plantation Proverbs.

• Hungry rooster don't cackle w'en he fine a wum.
  • Plantation Proverbs.

• Youk'n hide de fier, but w'at you gwine do wid de smoke?
  • Plantation Proverbs.

• I seem to see before me the smiling faces of thousands of children some young and fresh and some wearing the friendly marks of age. But all children at heart and not an unfriendly face among them. And while I’m trying hard to speak the right word, I seem to hear a voice lifted above the rest saying you have made some of us happy. And so I feel my heart fluttering and my lips trembling, and I have to bow silently and turn away and hurry back into the obscurity that fits me best.
  • Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (1895), Preface.

• Tater-vine growin’ w’ile you sleep.
  • Plantation Proverbs.

About Joel Chandler Harris

• Once upon a time a Georgian printed a couple of books that attracted notice, but immediately it turned out that he was little more than an amanuensis for the local blacks--that his works were really the products, not of white Georgia, but of black Georgia. Writing afterward as a white man, he swiftly subsided into the fifth rank.
  • H. L. Mencken, The Sahara of the Bozart.

• The few contributions we have made to literature have not seemed to stem the tide of prejudice, nor have the efforts of Cable and Donelly changed the place in literature given to us by Mrs. Stowe, Joel Harris, Opie Reid. Nowhere do we find spread to the world’s gaze a work that portrays Afro-American life in its true likeness. Twenty-five years of freedom have furnished novel coloring and strange situations out of which to evolve a strong, vigorous sketch of Afro-American life at its best, and illustrate the genius which has dominated the rapid progress. The splendid mental and literary equipment of some of our finest scholars; the fragments of verse and prose of which we catch fleeting glimpses now and then, encourages the hope that from the race will yet come forth the masterpiece which, measured by the literature of the world, shall stamp its author a genius and at the same time elevate the Afro-American in literature.
  • Ida B. Wells, "The Afro-American in Literature" (1892)

External links

• Works by Joel Chandler Harris at Project Gutenberg
• Robert Roosevelt's Brer Rabbit Stories
• Theodore Roosevelt on Brer Rabbit and his Uncle
• Research and Reference Guide. (Jan 3, 2003).
• Joel Chandler Harris. Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved on 2007-02-18.