Langston Hughes was a prolific writer: the author of plays, poetry, novels, autobiography, and children's tales. But it is in his short stories that readers see most clearly his greatest talents--his gift for humor and irony, his love for the vernacular, his brilliance in depicting character, and his profound perceptions about America. This new collection of 47 stories, written between 1919 and 1963, follows Hughes's literary blossoming and the development of his political and personal concerns.

The Short Stories of Langston Hughes

This collection of forty-seven stories written between 1919 and 1963--the most comprehensive available--showcases Langston Hughes's literary blossoming and the development of his personal and artistic concerns. Many of the stories assembled here have long been out of print, and others never before collected. These poignant, witty, angry, and deeply poetic stories demonstrate Hughes's uncanny gift for elucidating the most vexing questions of American race relations and human nature in general.