Joel Chandler Harris

Joel Chandler Harris (1848–1908) was an American journalist and writer. Born in Eatonton, Georgia, the illegitimate son of an Irish laborer, he was apprenticed at thirteen to a planter who published a newspaper at Turnwold plantation, where he listened to the stories of the enslaved people in the quarters. He joined the Atlanta Constitution in 1876 and remained there for twenty-four years; the Uncle Remus sketches he wrote for it were collected in Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (1880), Nights with Uncle Remus (1883) and later volumes, and made Brer Rabbit a figure in world literature.