SOURCE: "Joel Chandler Harris' Tales of Uncle Remus: For Mixed Audiences," in Touchstones: Reflections on the Best in Children's Literature. Volume Two: Fairy Tales, Fables, Myths, Legends, and Poetry, ChLA Publishers, 1987, pp. 118-26.

In the following essay, Keenan addresses prominent issues in scholarship regarding the Uncle Remus tales and reasserts the enduring value of these stories—for children and adults.

In 1955, the folklorist Richard Chase compiled a rich anthology entitled The Complete Tales of Uncle Remus, a collection of 185 tales taken from the nine books of Uncle Remus tales written by Joel Chandler Harris. Three of those books were published posthumously, an indication of the wide popularity that Harris' stories had for adults and children in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Chase's anthology was intended to be the capstone and memorial of Harris' literary achievement.

Since 1955, however, the popularity of the tales has wavered, quite often...