One of the most important writers to emerge from the Harlem Renaissance, Langston
Hughes may be best known as a poet, but he was also a brilliant storyteller, blending
elements of blues and jazz, speech and song, into a triumphant and wholly original idiom.
Perhaps more than any other writer, Langston Hughes made the white America of the
1920s and 1930s aware of the Black culture thriving in its midst. Hughes's poetry and
fiction works are messages from that America, sharply etched vignettes of its daily life,
cruelly accurate portrayals of Black and white collisions.

Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free paper,
with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers,
European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.