Paul Laurence Dunbar (June 27, 1872 – February 9, 1906) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Born in Dayton, Ohio, to parents who had been enslaved in Kentucky before the American Civil War, Dunbar began writing stories and verse when he was a child.

Dunbar's popularity increased rapidly after his work was praised by William Dean Howells, a leading editor associated with Harper's Weekly.

[1] Dunbar also wrote in conventional English in other poetry and novels and is considered the first important African American sonnet writer.

Paul Laurence Dunbar was born at 311 Howard Street in Dayton, Ohio, on June 27, 1872, to parents who were enslaved in Kentucky before the American Civil War.

[3] After being emancipated, his mother Matilda moved to Dayton with other family members, including her two sons Robert and William from her first marriage.

[9] Dunbar subsidized the printing of the book, and quickly earned back his investment in two weeks by selling copies personally,[11] often to passengers on his elevator.

Attorney Charles A. Thatcher offered to pay for college, but Dunbar wanted to persist with writing, as he was encouraged by his sales of poetry.

Thatcher helped promote Dunbar, arranging work to read his poetry in the larger city of Toledo at "libraries and literary gatherings.

"[8] In addition, psychiatrist Henry A. Tobey took an interest and assisted Dunbar by helping distribute his first book in Toledo and sometimes offering him financial aid.

[13] On June 27, 1896, the novelist, editor, and critic William Dean Howells published a favorable review of Dunbar's second book, Majors and Minors in Harper's Weekly.

The new literary fame enabled Dunbar to publish his first two books as a collected volume, titled Lyrics of Lowly Life, which included an introduction by Howells.

Through his poetry, he met and became associated with black leaders Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington, and was close to his contemporary James D. Corrothers.

[16] By the late 1890s, Dunbar started to explore the short story and novel forms; in the latter, he frequently featured white characters and society.

)[8] With this novel, Dunbar has been noted as one of the first African Americans to cross the "color line" by writing a work solely about white society.

[8] However, literary critic Rebecca Ruth Gould argues that one of these, The Sport of the Gods, culminates as an object lesson in the power of shame – a key component of the scapegoat mentality – to limit the law’s capacity to deliver justice.

During his life, commentators often noted that Dunbar appeared to be purely black African, at a time when many leading members of the African-American community were notably of mixed race, often with considerable European ancestry.

On the advice of his doctors, he moved to Colorado with his wife, as the cold, dry mountain air was considered favorable for TB patients.

Dunbar felt there was something suspect about the marketability of dialect poems, as if blacks were limited to a constrained form of expression not associated with the educated class.

[33] Dunbar credited William Dean Howells with promoting his early success, but was dismayed at the critic's encouragement that he concentrate on dialect poetry.

Angered that editors refused to print his more traditional poems, Dunbar accused Howells of "[doing] me irrevocable harm in the dictum he laid down regarding my dialect verse.

"[34] Dunbar was continuing in a literary tradition that used Negro dialect; his predecessors included such writers as Mark Twain, Joel Chandler Harris and George Washington Cable.

"[36] Frederick Douglass once referred to Dunbar as, "one of the sweetest songsters his race has produced and a man of whom [he hoped] great things.

"[37] His friend and writer James Weldon Johnson highly praised Dunbar, writing in The Book of American Negro Poetry:[8] Paul Laurence Dunbar stands out as the first poet from the Negro race in the United States to show a combined mastery over poetic material and poetic technique, to reveal innate literary distinction in what he wrote, and to maintain a high level of performance.

[39] Maya Angelou titled her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) from a line in Dunbar's poem "Sympathy", at the suggestion of jazz musician and activist Abbey Lincoln.