HARRIS, JOEL CHANDLER American author, was born in the vicinity of Eatonton, Putnam county (Ga.), Dec. 9, 1848. As apprentice on a weekly plantation paper near his home, he obtained the real basis for his later work. Later he continued his newspaper work at Macon, New Orleans, Forsyth (Ga.) and Savannah, finally spending 24 years on the staff of the Atlanta Constitution. Although he had earlier estab lished a reputation as a capable newspaper man and brilliant para grapher, it was through his negro sketches contributed to this paper that he first became known throughout the nation. Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings was published in book form in 1880 and was followed by Nights with Uncle Remus (1883), Daddy Jake, the Runaway, and Short Stories Told after Dark (1889), Uncle Remus and His Friends (1892) and later volumes of like nature, books which endeared the picturesque old story teller and his animal characters to young and old. A series of children's books began with Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country (1894). Mingo, and other Sketches in Black and White (1884), Free Joe, and Other Georgian Sketches (1887), Sister Jane, Her Friends and Acquaintances (1896) and Gabriel Tolliver (1902) reveal Harris' ability to vitalize other southern types. On the Plantation (1892 ; published in London as A Plan tation Printer) is one of the most interesting of his books because of its autobiographic nature. Harris often spoke of himself as simply a mouthpiece and a "cornfield" writer. As a man who has done much, however, to immortalize the faithfulness, the humour, the kindliness and quaint philosophy of the negro, in short, as the creator of Uncle Remus, he has won for himself a secure place in American literature. He died in Atlanta, July 3, 1908.