Violets and Other Tales by Alice Dunbar-Nelson

Violets and Other Tales Reviews

• 
  Sharon Barrow Wilfong

  This was a book of poetry and short stories. It is not a hundred pages long. I liked the poetry better than the stories which carried a tragical, Victorian-esque style.
  
  
  What I did like was the vivid descriptions of New Orleans. It gives the reader a rich taste of the Creole and Anglo-French culture.
  
  What I especially appreciate that this book is not self-consciously ethnic or gender specific. I did not know the writer was black when I read these stories. I did not even know it was a woman who wrote them.
  
  All I knew was that a brilliant writer wrote them.
  
  
  Here is the poem of the title:
  
  
  I had not thought of violets late,
  
  The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feet
  
  In wistful April days, when lovers mate
  
  And wander through the fields in raptures sweet.
  
  The thought of violets meant florists' shops,
  
  And bows and pins, and perfumed papers fine;
  
  And garish lights, and mincing little fops
  
  And cabarets and soaps, and deadening wines.
  
  So far from sweet real things my thoughts had strayed,
  
  I had forgot wide fields; and clear brown streams;
  
  The perfect loveliness that God has made,—
  
  Wild violets shy and Heaven-mounting dreams.
  
  And now—unwittingly, you've made me dream
  
  Of violets, and my soul's forgotten gleam.
  
  Alice Ruth Moore Dunbar Nelson (July 19, 1875 - September 18, 1935) was an American poet, journalist and political activist. Among the first generation born free in the South after the Civil War, she was one of the prominent African Americans involved in the artistic flourishing of the Harlem Renaissance. Her first husband was the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar; she then married physician Henry A. Callis; and last married Robert J. Nelson, a poet and civil rights activist. From Poem Hunter.
• 
  Kate

  Updating this after my book club.
  
  WOWOW the author had an INCREDIBLY interesting life. This was her first published work, which was released when she was 19????? I didn’t notice this when I was initially reading, but I love that she makes her metaphors very obvious. She often has a sentence or paragraph at the end of her stories where she very bluntly explains what she means. All of these stories are contemplative and cover some deep topics like death, love, or morality. This was definitely not my favorite book ever, but I’m super glad that I read it.
  
  OG review: I struggle to read books that are more classically written (not sure if I'm describing that well), so I could barely process this book. But, there were three of the stories that I deeply connect with, even though this was written in the 19th century. I even caught myself saying, "Wow that happened even back then?" to some of the relationship stuff that the author talks about. It was a quick read, but definitely very interesting.
• 
  Sarah Fonseca

  A collection of short essays, poems, and stories -- often contradictory in moral -- penned by the Black lesbian writer Alice Dunbar-Nelson before she was aged twenty. The Gutenberg edition of this text includes an introduction by the Black suffragette Sylvanie Williams, who Dunbar-Nelson presumably encountered during her time in turn-of-the-century New Orleans before moving to Harlem, New York.
• 
  soluslibri

  Every story triggers a different emotion. I like the last one best as it was funny and thoughtful. Language is the main pros I think (double points for rhymes, hah).