Joel Chandler Harris (
December 8,
1848 -
July 3,
1908) was an American journalist from
Georgia, best known for his collection of stories:
Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings[?] (
1881),
Nights with Uncle Remus[?] (
1883),
Uncle Remus and His Friends[?] (
1892), and
Uncle Remus and the Little Boy[?] (
1905). The stories, based on the African-American oral storytelling tradition, were revolutionary in their use of dialect and in featuring a
trickster hero called
Brer ("Brother") Rabbit, who uses his wits against adversity, though his efforts do not always succeed. The stories, which began appearing in the
Atlanta Constitution[?] in 1879, were popular among both Black and White readers in the North and South, not least because they presented an idealized view of race relations soon after the
Civil War.
Apart from Uncle Remus, Chandler wrote several other collections of stories depicting rural life in Georgia.
The 1946 Disney film Song of the South is based on Harris's work.
