Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) was an African American poet, novelist, and playwright. Much of his popular work in his lifetime used a Negro dialect, which helped him become one of the first nationally-accepted African American writers. His more traditional poems have become of greater interest to scholars. Dunbar wrote a dozen books of poetry, four books of short stories, five novels, and a play. In 1903 he wrote lyrics for In Dahomey, the first musical written and performed entirely by African-Americans to appear on Broadway. Dunbar died from tuberculosis in1906, at the age of 33.