Uncle Remus's Tales

The clever Brother Fox and the resourceful Brother Rabbit are known in many countries around the world. They are the main characters of "Uncle Remus's Tales," a small part of which was first published in our country in 1936 thanks to the translations by M. A. Gershenzon. In total, the extensive cycle of these black folk tales includes over one and a half hundred amusing stories in which animals and birds speak and act like people. Now all the stories about the "brothers" are collected under one cover. In their homeland, in the southern states of the USA, the first book of Uncle Remus's tales was published in 1880. Its author was the successful journalist Joel Chandler Harris. At that time, he was just over thirty. Joel heard the stories about the funny animals from black people many years ago when he, out of necessity, began working on a plantation near his home. Then, the stuttering, red-haired young man, son of an Irish immigrant, became a typesetter at a local printing house for a piece of bread. There he became acquainted with literary texts. Soon, Harris began writing them himself. Not much time passed before his articles, thanks to the literary talent of their author, his lively pen, knowledge of life, and sense of humor, were read throughout Georgia. Harris was interested not only in literature but also in folklore. The tales he later recorded and compiled into books are not only amusing reading. For English-speaking readers, they also serve as a record of those unique dialects that Harris heard on the plantations of the American South. Several collections of tales brought Harris fame, and three more were published after the writer's death. His house in Atlanta became a kind of museum of Uncle Remus. Some critics argued that Harris's literary talents were greatly exaggerated, and that he merely recorded what he heard. However, admirers believe that Harris's prose literally transformed children's literature of that time, as from the thorn bush into which Brother Fox threw Brother Rabbit emerged both Peter Rabbit, created by Beatrix Potter, and Winnie-the-Pooh by Milne.

Americans saw what Brother Rabbit and other characters from Harris's tales looked like thanks to the illustrations by Arthur Frost. This American artist illustrated the first editions of "Uncle Remus's Tales" in the late 19th century. Throughout his fairly long life, Frost created hundreds of paintings, being one of the first to draw comics; however, it was the images of the "brothers" from Harris's tales that brought him loud fame. In this edition, you can admire many of his illustrations. Other illustrations were created by Frost's contemporaries and fellow countrymen, J. M. Conde and F. Ver Beck.