New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., Inc., 1905. Hardcover first edition - The last novel to be published during Chesnutt's lifetime ( just 6 years after his first book) was a commercial failure. The story of a successful black man, who returns for a visit to his hometown in North Carolina and remains there hoping to overcome some of the racial inequalities found in the post-Reconstruction South, this book is not only an account of the protagonist's failure to succeed in his dream, it also failed to meet Chesnutt's goal described in the dedication ""to bring the forces of enlightenment to bear upon the vexed problems which harass the South." Second issue binding with the spelling of Chesnutt corrected on the covers. 294 pp.