Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One: The 'Girl-Reporter' Confronts the Lynch Mob: Miriam Michaelson's A Yellow Journalist Debbie Lelekis Chapter Two: Theodore Dreiser's 'Nigger Jeff': The Development of an Aesthetic Donald Pizer Chapter Three: Theodore Dreiser's 'Nigger Jeff,' "Richard Wright's 'Big Boy Leaves Home,' and Lynching Michael Sanders Chapter Four: Lynching as an American Tragedy in Theodore Dreiser's Literary Works Kiyohiko Murayama Chapter Five: Faulkner on Lynching Neil R. McMillen and Noel Polk Chapter Six: Lynching in Richard Wright's 'Big Boy Leaves Home" Toru Kiuchi Chapter Seven: "Lynching in Modern American Short Stories and Sexual Crime in Classic Myth" Yoshinobu Hakutani Chapter Eight: The Southern Ritual of Lynching in Faulkner's Light in August and Ellison's Three Days before the Shooting Robert Butler Chapter Nine: The Electric Execution of Bigger Thomas in Richard Wright's Native Son Yoshinobu Hakutani Chapter Ten: Lynching as Surrealism: Leon Forrest's "The Vision" Keith Byerman Chapter Eleven: "Lynching in African American Poetry Toru Kiuchi Chapter Twelve: Depictions of Racial Violence in the Work of Paul Laurence Dunbar Debbie Lelekis About the Contributors.