The Coral Island are, in his own words, "adventure stories for young folks", and "The Coral Island" is no exception. It is a Robinsonade, a genre of fiction inspired by Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" (1719), one of the most popular of its type, and one of the first works of juvenile fiction to feature exclusively juvenile heroes. Susan Maher, professor of English, notes that in comparison to "Robinson Crusoe" such books generally replaced some of the original's romance with a "pedestrian realism", exemplified by works such as "The Coral Island" and Frederick Marryat's 1841 novel "Masterman Ready, or the Wreck of the Pacific".
The Wife of His Youth unfortunate side of it; and I should be glad to have that view of it emphasized if in your opinion the book is strong enough to stand it; for a sermon that is labeled a sermon must be a good one to get a hearing". Many years later, Carl Van Vechten, who corresponded with Chesnutt, included a character in his novel, "Nigger Heaven" (1926), who reads "The Wife of His Youth" and its accompanying stories. The character despairingly realizes he will never write as well as Chesnutt. From the book: In "The Wife of His Youth", Charles Chesnutt does not