"Albion W. Tourgâee (1838-1905) was a major force for social, legal, and literary transformation in the second half of the nineteenth century. Best known for his Reconstruction novels A Fool's Errand (1879) and Bricks without Straw (1880), and for his key role in the civil rights case Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), challenging Louisiana's law segregating railroad cars, Tourgâee published more than a dozen novels and a volume of short stories, as well as nonfiction works of history, law, and politics. This volume is the first collection focused on Tourgâee's literary work and intends to establish his reputation as one of the great writers of fiction about the Reconstruction era arguably the greatest for the wide historical and geographical sweep of his novels and his ability to work with multiple points of view. As a white novelist interested in the rights of African Americans, Tourgâee was committed to developing not a single Black perspective but multiple Black perspectives, sometimes even in conflict. The challenge was to do justice to those perspectives in the larger context of the story he wanted to tell about a multiracial America. The seventeen essays in this volume are grouped around three large topics: race, citizenship, and nation. The volume also includes a Preface, Introduction, Afterword, Bibliography, and Chronology providing an overview of his career. This collection changes the way that we view Tourgâee by highlighting his contributions as a writer and editor and as a supporter of African American writers. Exploring the full spectrum of his literary works and cultural engagements, Reimagining the Republic: Race, Citizenship, and Nation in the Literary Work of Albion Tourgâee reveals a new Tourgâee for our moment of renewed interest in the literature and politics of Reconstruction"--

ForewordCarolyn L. Karcher | xiIntroduction: Literary TourgéeSandra M. Gustafson and Robert S. Levine | 1Part I: Race1 Gothic Reconstruction: Hawthorne's House in Tourgée's Toinette and A Royal GentlemanRobert S. Levine | 192 Tourgée's A Fool's Errand and the Limits of White RadicalismJohn Ernest | 323 "Queer Synecdoche": Tourgée's Bricks without Straw and Black KinshipNancy Bentley | 444 Reparations and Passing in Tourgée's Pactolus PrimeDeLisa D. Hawkes | 575 The True Friendship of Charles W. Chesnutt and Albion W. TourgéeTess Chakkalakal | 706 "Their Position Must Be Mined": Tourgée in Charles Chesnutt'sCareer-Long Engagement with White ReadersJennifer Rae Greeson | 84Part II: Citizenship7 Reimagining the Republic: Tourgée on CitizenshipSandra M. Gustafson | 978 Tourgée, Democracy, Romance, and the Art of FictionKenneth W. Warren | 1109 Exodian Allegories of Incomplete Emancipation in Bricks without StrawChristine Holbo | 12410 The Business of Marriage, Pluralized: Mormonism and Money in Button's InnMolly Ball | 13811 Tourgée's New Realism: Disciplinary Reparation and the Quest for Racial JusticeAlmas Khan | 15112 With Gauge and Swallow, Attorneys: Tourgée's Legal RomanceBrook Thomas | 165Part III: Nation13 "I Don't Care a Rag for the Union as It Was": Amputation, the Pastand the Work of the Freedmen's Bureau in Bricks without StrawSarah E. Chinn | 18114 Tracking Redress in the West: The Railroad in Tourgée's Figsand Thistles and Ruiz de Burton's The Squatter and the DonAnnemarie Mott Ewing | 19415 The Literary Lost Cause of Albion Tourgée: The Project of Our ContinentMary B. Hale | 20716 Tourgée on the Dangers of Reconciliation: Revenge in the Reconstruction-Era NovelsGregory Laski | 22317 Thomas Dixon, Albion Tourgée, and the False Balance of the Civil WarAlex Zweber Leslie | 236AfterwordMark Elliott | 251Albion W. Tourgée: A Chronology | 259Acknowledgments | 263Selected Bibliography | 265List of Contributors | 269Index | 273