News about Joel Chandler Harris

Dr Emily Zobel Marshall (inset), a postcolonial literature researcher at Leeds Beckett University, has called for greater recognition of the debt that was owed to the Brer Rabbit stories told by enslaved Africans working on American plantations. According to the research scholar, Peter Rabbit's 'quittessentially English' tales of Peter Rabbit (right), Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, and Jemima Puddle-Duck were'more than inspired' by slave tales from the 1800s. In an essay for The Conversation, Dr. Zobel Marshall's tales about a cunning rabbit that lives in a briar patch and outwits larger animals can be traced back to pre-colonial Africa. The tales were later published by slaves on plantations in America before being adapted by American journalist and folklorist Joel Chandler Harris in the 19th century. The Uncle Remus stories were told as they became known to Potter, and Dr. Zobel Marshall accused the acclaimed author of'cultural exploitation' and refusing to properly acknowledge the sources of her children's stories.