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Overview
“The Passing of Grandison” by Charles W. Chesnutt—one of the first great and widely known Black American writers—is part of Chesnutt’s 1899 collection The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line
. The stories in the collection explore how race and race-based discrimination affect individuals and families. “The Passing of Grandison” is set in the early 1850s, before the abolition of slavery in the United States. Two narratives interweave in the story as the young heir to a Kentucky plantation, motivated by selfish goals rather than by disgust for the source of his wealth, offers an enslaved man the opportunity to gain his freedom, with surprising results.Read a full story summary, a full story analysis, and explanations of important quotes from “The Passing of Grandison.”
