New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., Inc., 1905. Hardcover first edition - The very uncommon first issue with Chesnutt's name misspelled on both the front cover and the spine; this error was caught by Chesnutt when a sample was sent to him at the beginning of July, and he was assured by the publisher on July 5th that 'not a great number' had been bound thus. This novel, the last to be published during his lifetime (and published just 6 years after his first book) was a commercial failure. The story of a successful black man, who returns for a visit to his hometown in North Carolina and remains there hoping to overcome some of the racial inequalities found in the post-Reconstruction South, this book is not only an account of the protagonist's failure to succeed in his dream, it also failed to meet Chesnutt's goal described in the dedication ""to bring the forces of enlightenment to bear upon the vexed problems which harass the South." 294 pp.