Kate Chopin's Desiree's Baby, written in the same period as Chesnutt's fiction, also deals with the subject of racial miscegenation. Desiree, the adopted daughter of an upstanding Louisiana family, marries the son and heir to another plantation family. The couple are blissfully happy until Desiree gives birth to a son whose features show evidence of African-American heritage.

Mark Twain's 1894 novel Pudd'nhead Wilson is a story about miscegenation in the antebellum South. A light-skinned slave switches her baby with her white owner's baby, with unexpected results for the entire household. The novel is noted for its grim humor and its reflections on the nature of racism.

Charles Chesnutt's story "The Wife of His Youth" (1899) examines color prejudices among middle-class northern African Americans. The so-called Blue Blood society—made up of African Americans of light skin—isolates itself from those...