Already well known for
The Souls of Black Folkand other works, W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) published
The Quest of the Silver Fleecein 1911. It was his first novel and became another of the various ways by which he challenged racial discrimination and social injustice over the span of his long career. Du Bois considered
Questto represent “The Future of the Negro” – the bibliographic heading under which he classified the novel in his book
The Negro(1915). In 1940, Du Bois wrote that
Quest“was really an economic study of some merit” (
Dusk of Dawn).
Commentators, both contemporary and later, have noted that Quest is part of a tradition of books that frame everyday human existence in terms of struggles over the production of goods (Braithwaite; Lewis): for example, Frank Norris's
1660 words
Citation: Williams, Robert W.. "The Quest of the Silver Fleece". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 December 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=28514, accessed 06 October 2024.]