The Complete Tales of Uncle Remus

•1881 collection of African-American folktales collected by Joel Chandler Harris, a journalist in Post-Reconstruction Atlanta
•Animal stories, songs, and oral folklore
•Similar to Aesop’s Fables and the stories of Jean de La Fontaine
•Uncle Remus is a fictional character who is a kindly old former slave who serves as a storytelling device, passing the folktales to the children around him
•Written in an eye dialect to represent a Deep South Gullah dialect
•Were well received at the time of publication but by the mid-20th century the stereotype of the old uncle and the dialect were seen as demeaning