MAMBA’S DAUGHTERS
BOOKS BY DU BOSE HEYWARD
ANGEL
SKYLINES AND HORIZONS
MAMBA’S DAUGHTERS
PORGY: A NOVEL
PORGY: A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS
(WITH DOROTHY HEYWARD)
CAROLINA CHANSONS
(WITH HERVEY ALLEN)
DU BOSE HEYWARD
MAMBA’S
DAUGHTERS
A
NOVEL
OF
CHARLESTON
[Illustration]
THE LITERARY GUILD
NEW YORK 1929
[Illustration]
COPYRIGHT, 1929
BY DU BOSE HEYWARD
COPYRIGHT, 1928
BY THE CROWELL PUBLISHING CO.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
GARDEN CITY. N. Y.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Because I believe that regional literature, even though it be avowedly
fictional, should be unequivocal in its identification with its
locale, I have not hesitated in this novel to apply the correct names
to the city, streets, and outlying districts of which I write. Lest
this course should lead the reader into confusing the narrative with
either history or biography, I desire to stress the fact that the
work is purely imaginative and is concerned only with certain social
and spiritual values existing in Charleston and its environs. For the
purposes of the novel the material has been subjected to an intense
synthesis. Thus the phosphate mining camp stands not merely as an
exposition of an isolated industry, but as a focal point for the
drawing together of a number of mental attitudes and incidents typical
of the industrial black belt. With the exception of allusions to people
whose correct names are used, and who will be readily recognized, the
characters who appear in the book are fictional creations and are not
intended as representations of actual characters either living or dead.
DU BOSE HEYWARD.
Charleston, South Carolina,
October, 1928.
PART I