Dearest Chums and Partners: Joel Chandler Harris's Letters to His Children. a Domestic Biography

Between 1890, when the last of his four sons and two daughters moved away from their childhood home in West End, Ga., and his death, Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908) conducted a voluminous correspondence with his children. Keenan, an English professor at Georgia State, has compiled 280 of these invariably supportive, affectionate and often wise letters. Gossipy, occasionally coy, and laden with domestic minutiae, they trace Harris's growing interest in Roman Catholicism and provide a broad portrait of his Southern life. The portrait, however, is not always a flattering one. Best known as the author of the ``Uncle Remus'' tales, Harris often used the Uncle Remus dialect when writing to his daughters, and his patronizing comments about ``negroes''--``that happy-go-lucky, thoughtless race''--testify to his disturbing racial attitudes. Photos. (Aug.)