Actually I read the Project Gutenberg transcription of a reprint of the first edition. This has been on my queue for a long time because of its reputation as a send-up of identity politics avant la lettre, which I thought would be fun to read, back before the backlash had brought us the likely end of civilization. In the meantime it’s become somewhat research-related, since I learned from Brooks Hefner’s book Black Pulp that Schuyler was a crucial figure in black newspaper fiction. Anyway, this novel is more of a Menckenian highbrow satire than anything else. Highly readable and very funny in parts—though, speaking of the great backlash, the spoof of presidential election politics is very, very close to home in 2025. Schuyler understood quite clearly the dynamics of the party system and the opportunities it offers to ideological entrepreneurs of any race who know how to exploit racism and class conflict.

Despite explicitly repeating the literal party line on racism being used to split the working class, the novel finally tends toward a Swift-like “Tory anarchy” more than any kind of radical challenge to the existing order. I think.