500 Great Books By Women discussion

The Works of Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Volume I, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, edited by Gloria T. Hull, 1895-1898, United States, SHORT STORIES/POETRY

"...The author suspends time in the twenty-nine vignettes and poems of Violets and Other Tales, published in 1895, and the fourteen selections in The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories, composed after her marriage to Negro Poet Laureate Paul Laurence Dunbar and published in 1898...And her lovers, like the author herself, are an ethnic mélange: immigrant grocers of the old countries—France, Italy, Greece; Camille, the beautiful, sequestered orphan; Annette, an accomplished, deceived songstress; the garrulous woman who sells pralines by the archbishop's chapel, endlessly waving a fan; an abuse, distraught wife; M'sieu Fortier, Athanasia, Mr. Baptisa, La Juanita, Titee..."

(J.M., p. 367)