2015 Reprint of 1902 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition. Not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. In "The Sport of the Gods," first published in 1902, Dunbar examines the life of urban Black Americans. Forced to leave the South, a family falls apart amid the harsh realities of Northern inner city life in this examination of the forces that extinguish the dreams of African Americans. It remains a compelling commentary on the life of African-Americans after the abolition of slavery and landmark representation of black life in African-American literature.

The Sport of the Gods is a novel by Paul Laurence Dunbar, first published in 1902, centered on American urban black life. Forced to leave the South, a family falls apart amid the harsh realities of Northern inner city life in this 1902 examination of the forces that extinguish the dreams of African Americans.Berry Hamilton, an emancipated black man, works as a butler for a wealthy white man Maurice Oakley. Berry lives in a small cottage a short distance away from the Oakley's place of residence. Berry lives with his wife, Fannie, and two children, Joe and Kitty. During a farewell dinner for...

The Heart of Happy Hollow features sixteen short stories that provide rare glimpses into the lives of African Americans after the Civil War. Through characters ranging from schemers to preachers, Paul Laurence Dunbar crafted a rare snapshot of long-lost communities and their poignant sensibilities.An author who achieved remarkable versatility, he draws on language that is by turns folksy and formal, putting forth controversial vernacular dialects as easily as he delivers a hauntingly poetic scene. In this collection, readers meet an influential entrepreneur who must navigate a treacherous...

Paul Laurence Dunbar (June 27, 1872 - February 9, 1906) was an American poet, novelist, and playwright of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Dayton, Ohio, to parents who had been enslaved in Kentucky before the American Civil War, Dunbar began to write stories and verse when still a child and was president of his high school's literary society. He published his first poems at the age of 16 in a Dayton newspaper. Much of Dunbar's more popular work in his lifetime was written in the Negro dialect associated with the antebellum South, though he wrote in several dialects, including...