Literary Texts: Post-Bellum, Pre-Harlem

Reflecting a pivotal shift from literature written for a white audience to literature written for and (perceptually) more reflective of a black audience, the Post-Bellum, Pre-Harlem refers to a very particular period in the history of African American literature. This term was originally coined by Charles W. Chesnutt (1931) and is generally applied to literary works written and/or published from 1877-1917. Found below is a growing collection of such works, and, as each of the following belongs to the Public Domain, they are reproduced and shared here freely. They are reformatted, stylized, and typeset here for easier reading and their employment as Open Educational Resources (OERs). To that end, they are sorted first by author's surname and then listed by year.

Title	Author(s)	Year	Type	Pages	File	Size
The Conjure Woman	Charles Waddell Chesnutt	1899	Short Stories	203		1.00 MB
The House Behind the Cedars	Charles Waddell Chesnutt	1900	Novel	296		1.13 MB
The Colonel's Dream	Charles Waddell Chesnutt	1905	Novel	359		1.37 MB
The Souls of Black Folk	W.E.B. Du Bois	1903	Non-Fiction	283		1.74 MB
The Uncalled	Paul Laurence Dunbar	1898	Novel	207		926 KB
The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories	Paul Laurence Dunbar	1899	Short Stories	254		1.07 MB
The Sport of the Gods	Paul Laurence Dunbar	1902	Novel	205		803 KB
The Heart of Happy Hollow	Paul Laurence Dunbar	1904	Novel	186		840 KB
Violets and Other Tales	Alice Ruth Moore (Dunbar-Nelson)	1895	Short Stories / Poetry	134		607 KB
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories	Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson	1899	Short Stories	122		599 KB
Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence	Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson	1914	Speeches	529		1.89 MB
Magnolia Leaves: Poems	Mary Weston Fordham	1897	Poetry	98		541 KB
Imperium in Imperio: A Study of the Negro Race Problem	Sutton Elbert Griggs	1899	Novel	234		923 KB
The Hindered Hand; or, the Reign of the Repressionist	Sutton Elbert Griggs	1905	Novel	345		1.25 MB
Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted	Frances Ellen Watkins Harper	1893	Novel	318		1.23 MB
Poems	Frances Ellen Watkins Harper	1895	Poetry	110		515 KB
Sowing and Reaping: A Temperance Story	Frances Ellen Watkins Harper	1911	Novel	128		626 KB
Trial and Triumph	Frances Ellen Watkins Harper	1911	Novel	158		686 KB
Hagar's Daughter: A Story of Southern Caste Prejudice	Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins	1901	Novel	365		1.4 MB
Winona: A Tale of Negro Life in the South and Southwest	Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins	1902	Novel	196		853 KB
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man	James Weldon Johnson	1912	Novel	232		845 KB
The Book of American Negro Poetry	James Weldon Johnson	1922	Poetry	240		891 KB
Up From Slavery: An Autobiography	Booker T. Washington	1899	Non-Fiction	328		1.18 MB
The Future of the American Negro	Booker T. Washington	1900	Non-Fiction	163		691 KB
The Negro Problem	Booker T. Washington et al.	1903	Non-Fiction	146		663 KB