Joel Chandler Harris , better known today as the talented Georgian folklorist and creator of Uncle Remus who recounted numerous tales of plantation life, was first and foremost a newspaper journalist. It has not been unusual for literary figures to begin their writing careers as journalists: Mark Twain, a contemporary of Harris's, composed his first paragraphs at the typecase and served his literary apprenticeship on the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise (Nevada) ; William Dean Howells, Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, Ernest Hemingway, and others gained their literary apprenticeships and saw their first writing efforts published in newspapers. But for most of this group, their journalistic apprenticeships were relatively brief (although Howells served as editor of the Atlantic Monthly for almost fifteen years); Harris's claim to literary recognition, by contrast, flowed more directly from his efforts as a journalist. His materials were drawn from his experience while working for the Countryman, a weekly newspaper published on a middle Georgia plantation.
