Mandingo (novel)
First edition
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| Author | Kyle Onstott |
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| Language | English |
| Publisher | Denlinger's |
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Publication date
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1957 |
| Pages | 659 |
| OCLC | 2123289 |
Mandingo is a novel by Kyle Onstott, published in 1957. The book is set in the 1830s in the antebellum South primarily around Falconhurst, a fictional plantation in Alabama owned by the planter Warren Maxwell. The narrative centers on Maxwell, his son Hammond, and the Mandingo slave Ganymede, or Mede. It is a tale of cruelty toward the black people of that time and place, detailing vicious fights, poisoning, and violent death. The novel was made into a film of the same name in 1975.
Kyle Elihu Onstott was born on January 12, 1887 in Perry County, Illinois. Although he never had a steady job, Onstott was from a wealthy family and was able to pursue his main hobby—dog breeding and judging—in lieu of a career.
Onstott was a lifelong bachelor and at age 40 he adopted a 23-year-old college student, Philip, who had lost his own parents. Philip eventually married a woman named Vicky and the two remained close to Onstott for the rest of his life. Onstott dedicated Mandingo to Philip and Vicky.
Onstott began writing Mandingo when he was 65 years old. He based some of the events in the novel on “bizarre legends” he heard while growing up: tales of slave breeding and sadistic abuse of slaves. He was invited to write an article for True: The Man’s Magazine in 1959 about the horrors of slavery.
Mandingo was first published in 1957 in hardcover. It was 659 pages long and sold around 2.7 million copies. Subsequent paperback editions whittled the novel down to 423 pages. The novel sold a total of 5 million copies in the United States.
Mandingo is the only novel of the Falconhurst series that Onstott wrote, although he edited the next three novels in the series. All of the sequels were penned by either Lance Horner or Henry Whittington (aka Ashley Carter).
Mandingo takes place in 1832 on the fictional plantation Falconhurst, located close to Tombigbee River near Benson, Alabama. Warren Maxwell is the elderly and infirm owner of Falconhurst and he lives there with his 19-year-old son, Hammond. Falconhurst is a slave breeding plantation where slaves are encouraged to mate and produce children ("suckers"). Because of the nature of the plantation, the slaves are well fed, not overworked, and rarely punished in a brutal manner. However, the slaves are treated as animals to be used as the Maxwells wish. Warren Maxwell, for example, sleeps with his feet against a naked slave to drain his rheumatism.
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