Paul Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906), American poet, the son of former slaves, born in Dayton, Ohio. Dunbar was one of the first black writers to gain national prominence. He published his first volume of verse, Oak and Ivy (1893), at his own expense. His second book of poetry was Majors and Minors (1895). In 1896 the best of his poems appeared in a single volume, Lyrics of Lowly Life, with an introduction by American writer William Dean Howells. Howells noted that Dunbar was the first black poet to express the lyrical qualities of black life and the black dialect. After the publication of Lyrics of a Lowly Life Dunbar gave readings in the United States and Britain. He subsequently worked at the Library of Congress. For most of his career Dunbar wrote for a white audience, and he generally avoided racial issues in his work. He wrote several more volumes of poetry, as well as four novels, the best known of which is The Sport of the Gods (1902), the story of a black family in a Northern city in the United States. Dunbar also wrote four collections of short stories. His Collected Poems appeared in 1913.