Volume 3 collects the poems of the last period of Hughes's life. "Montage of a Dream Deferred" (1951) brilliantly fused the modernist dissonances of bebop jazz with his perception of Harlem life as both a triumph of hope and a deepening crisis ("What happens to a dream deferred?"). In the tumultuous following years, he refused to relinquish the mantle of the poet, as may be seen in his inspired last two books of verse, "Ask Your Mama" (1961) and "The Panther and the Lash" (1967). The former demonstrates Hughes's continuing alertness to the significance of black music as a guide to American...
Volume 3 collects the poems of the last period of Hughes's life. "Montage of a Dream Deferred" (1951) brilliantly fused the modernist dissonances of b...
Although best known as a poet, Langston Hughes was also the author of two novels that richly evoke the black experience in America. First published in 1930 and 1958, respectively, "Not without Laughter" and "Tambourines to Glory" reflect the early and late vision of one of the twentieth century's most distinguished men of letters. In his introduction to this combined edition of both novels, Dolan Hubbard addresses Hughes's growing influence on American letters and reveals how a black aesthetic tradition shaped his art and his imagination. Hughes shows us how the discourse of black America...
Although best known as a poet, Langston Hughes was also the author of two novels that richly evoke the black experience in America. First published...
Jesse B. Semple first sprang to life in Langston Hughes's weekly "Chicago Defender" column in 1943. Almost immediately, the "Simple stories," as they were routinely called, had a large and ever-increasing audience. Simple soon became Harlem's Everyman an ordinary black workingman, representative of the masses of black folks in the 1940s.
Simple had migrated to Harlem, like many other blacks, seeking to escape the racism of the South, and he celebrated his new freedoms despite the economic struggles he still confronted. Simple's bar buddy and foil in the stories is the better-educated,...
Jesse B. Semple first sprang to life in Langston Hughes's weekly "Chicago Defender" column in 1943. Almost immediately, the "Simple stories," as th...
Among the most prolific of American writers, Langston Hughes gained international attention and acclaim in nearly every genre of writing. While scholars and general readers have enjoyed relatively easy access to most of his writings, Hughes's work in one genre "the essay" has gone largely unnoticed. From his radical pieces praising revolutionary socialist ideology in the 1930s to the more conservative, previously unpublished "Black Writers in a Troubled World," which he wrote a year before his death, Hughes used the essay form as a vehicle through which to comment on the contemporary...
Among the most prolific of American writers, Langston Hughes gained international attention and acclaim in nearly every genre of writing. While sch...
In Volume 8 of "The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, " the genial Harlem everyman, Jesse B. Semple returns with his more cosmopolitan bar buddy, Ananias Boyd. Social climber Joyce Lane is now Mrs. Jesse B. Semple, and Simple has minimized his flirtatious contacts with other women. Despite these ongoing characters, the later Simple stories are very different from the earlier Simple tales. The later stories evoke the historical and social context within which they were written, a politically dangerous time for the fictional adventures and fantasies of the main characters.
"The Later...
In Volume 8 of "The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, " the genial Harlem everyman, Jesse B. Semple returns with his more cosmopolitan bar buddy,...
Langston Hughes was among the Harlem Renaissance authors who traveled widely during the 1920s. In the first volume of his autobiography, "The Big Sea, " covering the years through 1931, Hughes offers recollections of his childhood in Kansas, his high school years in Cleveland, his sojourn with his father in Mexico, and his initial reactions to New York City and Harlem.
Commentaries on the "Black Renaissance" in Harlem and Washington, D.C., are intertwined with recollections of his student years at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, his travels through the South, and his association as a...
Langston Hughes was among the Harlem Renaissance authors who traveled widely during the 1920s. In the first volume of his autobiography, "The Big S...
For the first time in many years, Langston Hughes's published collections of stories are now available in a single book. Included in this volume are: "Ways of White Folks, " originally published in 1934; "Laughing to Keep from Crying, " originally published in 1952; and additional stories from "Something in Common and Other Stories, " originally published in 1963; as well as previously uncollected stories. These fictions, carefully crafted in the language Hughes loved, manifest the many themes for which he is best known. We meet and come to know many characters--black and white, young and...
For the first time in many years, Langston Hughes's published collections of stories are now available in a single book. Included in this volume ar...
I Wonder As I Wander (1956), Hughes's second volume of autobiography, is a continuation from The Big Sea, detailing his global travels to such areas as Cuba, Haiti, Paris, the Soviet Union, and the Far East. It culminates in his 1937 coverage for the Baltimore Afro-American of the Spanish Civil War. The travelogue highlights the beginning of Hughes's career as a journalist, a further realization of his goal to live as a professional writer. Furthermore, it shows the influence of legendary black educator Mary McLeod Bethune, who inspired Hughes to travel through the...
I Wonder As I Wander (1956), Hughes's second volume of autobiography, is a continuation from The Big Sea, detailing his global trave...
Throughout his long career as a poet, fiction writer, and chronicler of the situation of blacks throughout the world, Langston Hughes also wrote books for children. Whether fiction, poetry, or nonfiction, these works are true literature into which he put much research, thought, creative energy, and love. His young readers then and now can sense that they are just as important as his adult audience, while adult readers can appreciate the skill of a great writer able to speak to readers of all ages.
Beginning with four pieces Hughes published in "The Brownies' Book," a magazine for black...
Throughout his long career as a poet, fiction writer, and chronicler of the situation of blacks throughout the world, Langston Hughes also wrote bo...
But someday somebody'll Stand up and talk about me Black and beautiful And sing about me. And put on plays about me I reckon it'll be Me myself Yes, it'll be me.
Langston Hughes is least known for his theatrical endeavors, yet his attention to the theater was lifelong. His love of the stage began in childhood, and from the late 1920s on he was continually writing plays, for black community theater, for theater companies he established himself, and for the Broadway and off-Broadway stage. His early plays endeavor to provide "authentic" representations...
But someday somebody'll Stand up and talk about me Black and beautiful And sing about me. And put on plays about me I reckon...