Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet during the turn of the 20th century. Born to ex-slave parents, Dunbar began writing at a very early age and had even published his first poems by the age of 16 in a local newspaper. Much of his work was written in the "e;African-American Vernacular"e; associated with the antebellum South, although he al...