Joel Chandler Harris had a difficult early life. His father deserted his mother when he was a baby. Somehow, with the help of neighbors, they survived; and at the age of fourteen he went to work for the Atlanta Constitution, which became his permanent job. In his spare time, as a young man, he began to write Negro folktales under the pseudonym Uncle Remus.

His most important literary works:

Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, 1880
Mingo, and Other Sketches in Black and White, 1884
Free Joe, and Other Georgian Sketches, 1887
Gabriel Tolliver: a Story of Reconstruction, 1902
The Complete Tales of Uncle Remus, 1955.