The Works of Langston Hughes

I, Too
I, too sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

—From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, edited by Arnold Rampersad (New York:  Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), p. 46.

Poetry (Published By Knopf, Except As Indicated)

• The Weary Blues, 1926.
• Fine Clothes to the Jew, 1927.
• The Negro Mother and Other Dramatic Recitations, Golden Stair Press, 1931.
• Dear Lovely Death, Troutbeck Press, 1931.
• The Dream Keeper and Other Poems, 1932.
• Scottsboro Limited: Four Poems and a Play, Golden Stair Press, 1932.
• A New Song, International Workers Order, 1938.
• (With Robert Glenn) Shakespeare in Harlem, 1942.
• Jim Crow's Last Stand, Negro Publication Society of America, 1943.
• Freedom's Plow, Musette Publishers, 1943.
• Lament for Dark Peoples and Other Poems, Holland, 1944.
• Fields of Wonder, 1947.
• One-Way Ticket, 1949.
• Montage of a Dream Deferred, Holt, 1951.
• Ask Your Mama: Twelve Moods for Jazz, 1961.
• The Panther and the Lash: Poems of Our Times, 1967, reprinted, Vintage Books, 1992.
• The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, 1994.
• The Block: Poems, Viking, 1995.
• Carol of the Brown King: Poems, Atheneum Books, 1997.
• The Pastebaord Bandit, Oxford University Press, 1997.

Novels

• Not Without Laughter, Knopf, 1930.
• Tambourines to Glory, John Day, 1958.

Short Stories

• The Ways of White Folks, Knopf, 1934.
• Simple Speaks His Mind, Simon & Schuster, 1950.
• Laughing to Keep from Crying, Holt, 1952.
• Simple Takes a Wife, Simon &Schuster, 1953.
• Simple Stakes a Claim, Rinehart, 1957.
• Something in Common and Other Stories, Hill &Wang, 1963.
• Simple's Uncle Sam, Hill & Wang, 1965.
• The Return of Simple Hill & Wang, 1994.
• Short Stories of Langston Hughes, Hill & Wang, 1996.

Autobiography

• The Big Sea: An Autobiography, Knopf, 1940.
• I Wonder as I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey, Rinehart, 1956.

Nonfiction

• A Negro Looks at Soviet Central Asia, Co-operative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the USSR, 1934.
• (With Roy De Carava) The Sweet Flypaper of Life, Simon & Schuster, 1955.
• (With Milton Meltzer) A Pictorial History of the Negro in America, Crown, 1956, 4th edition published as A Pictorial History of Black Americans, 1973, 6th edition published as A Pictorial History of African Americans, 1995.
• Fight for Freedom: The Story of the NAACP, Norton, 1962.
• (With Meltzer) Black Magic: A Pictorial History of the Negro in American Entertainment, Prentice-Hall, 1967.
• Black Misery, Paul S. Erickson, 1969.

Books for Children

• (With Arna Bontemps) Popo and Fifina: Children of Haiti, Macmillan, 1932.
• The First Book of Negroes, F. Watts, 1952.
• The First Book of Rhythms, F. Watts, 1954, also published as The Book of Rhythms, Oxford University Press, 1995.
• Famous American Negroes, Dodd, 1954.
• Famous Negro Music Makers, Dodd, 1955.
• The First Book of Jazz, F. Watts, 1955, revised edition, 1976.
• The First Book of the West Indies, F. Watts, 1956 (published in England as The First Book of the Caribbean, E. Ward, 1965).
• Famous Negro Heroes of America, Dodd, 1958.
• The First Book of Africa, F. Watts, 1960, revised edition, 1964.
• The Sweet and Sour Animal Book, Oxford University Press, 1994.

Editor

• Four Lincoln University Poets, Lincoln University, 1930.
• (With Bontemps) The Poetry of the Negro, 1746-1949, Doubleday, 1949, revised edition published as The Poetry of the Negro, 1746-1970, 1970.
• (With Waring Cuney and Bruce M. Wright) Lincoln University Poets, Fine Editions, 1954.
• (With Bontemps) The Book of Negro Folklore, Dodd, 1958.
• An African Treasury: Articles, Essays, Stories, Poems by Black Africans, Crown, 1960.
• Poems from Black Africa, Indiana University Press, 1963.
• New Negro Poets: U.S., foreword by Gwendolyn Brooks, Indiana University Press, 1964.
• The Book of Negro Humor, Dodd, 1966.
• The Best Short Stories by Negro Writers: An Anthology from 1899 to the Present, Little, Brown, 1967.

Translator

• (With Mercer Cook) Jacques Roumain, Masters of Dew, Reynal & Hitchcock, 1947, second edition, Liberty Book Club, 1957.
• (With Frederic Carruthers) Nicolas Guillen, Cuba Libre, Ward Ritchie, 1948.
• Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral, Indiana University Press, 1957.

Omnibus Volumes

• Selected Poems, Knopf, 1959.
• The Best of Simple, Hill & Wang, 1961.
• Five Plays by Langston Hughes, edited by Webster Smalley, Indiana University Press, 1963.
• The Langston Hughes Reader, Braziller, 1968.
• Don't You Turn Back (poems), edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins, Knopf, 1969.
• Good Morning Revolution: The Uncollected Social Protest Writing of Langston Hughes, edited by Faith Berry, Lawrence Hill, 1973.
• The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, Knopf, 1994.
• The Collected Works of Langston Hughes (18 volumes), University of Missouri Press, 2001, 2002.

Other

• (With Bontemps) Arna Bontemps-Langston Hughes Letters: 1925-1967, edited by Charles H. Nichols, Dodd, 1980.
• (With Zora Neale Hurston) Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life (play), HarperCollins, 1991.
• Langston Hughes and the Chicago Defender: Essays on Race, Politics, and Culture, 1942-62, edited by Christopher C. De Santis, University of Illinois Press, 1995.
• Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, 1925-1964, edited by Emily Bernard, Knopf, 2001.
• Way Down South (a screenplay), 1942
• Author of libretto for operas, The Barrier, 1950, and Troubled Island.
• Lyricist for Just around the Corner, and for Kurt Weill's Street Scene, 1948.
• Columnist for Chicago Defender and New York Post.
• Contributor to periodicals, including The Nation, African Forum, Black Drama, Players Magazine, Negro Digest, Black World, Freedomways, Harlem Quarterly, Phylon, Challenge, Negro Quarterly, and Negro Story.
• Little Ham was adapted as a musical by Judd Woldin and Richard Engquist. The production, directed by Eric Riley, opened off-Broadway at the John Houseman Theater, 2002.

Some of Hughes's letters, manuscripts, lecture notes, periodical clippings, and pamphlets are included in the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection, Beinecke Library, Yale University. Additional materials are in the Schomburg Collection of the New York Public Library, the library of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, and the Fisk University library.

Source: Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2003.

Gale Database: Contemporary Authors

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