Langston Hughes Books In Order

Simple Books In Order

  1. Simple Speaks His Mind (1950)
  2. Simple Takes a Wife (1953)
  3. Simple Stakes a Claim (1957)
  4. The Best of Simple (1961)
  5. Simple’s Uncle Sam (1965)
  6. The Early Simple Stories (2002)
  7. The Later Simple Stories (2002)
  8. The Return of Simple (2011)

Novels

  1. Not Without Laughter (1930)
  2. Tambourines to Glory (1958)

Collections

  1. The Ways of White Folks (1934)
  2. Laughing to Keep from Crying (1952)
  3. The Langston Hughes Reader (2017)

Plays

  1. Mule Bone (1931)

Picture Books

  1. Lullaby (For a Black Mother) (2021)

Non fiction

  1. The Big Sea (1940)
  2. I Wonder As I Wander (1956)
  3. Fight For Freedom (1962)
  4. Selected Letters of Langston Hughes (2011)
  5. Letters from Langston (2016)

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Langston Hughes Books Overview

The Best of Simple

Langston Hughes’s stories about Jesse B. Semple first composed for a weekly column in the Chicago Defender and then collected in Simple Speaks His Mind, Simple Takes a Wife, and Simple Stakes a Claim have been read and loved by hundreds of thousands of readers. In The Best of Simple, the author picked his favorites from these earlier volumes, stories that not only have proved popular but are now part of a great and growing literary tradition.

Simple might be considered an Everyman for black Americans. Hughes himself wrote: ‘…
these tales are about a great many people although they are stories about no specific persons as such. But it is impossible to live in Harlem and not know at least a hundred Simples, fifty Joyces, twenty five Zaritas, and several Cousin Minnies or reasonable facsimiles thereof.’

As Arnold Rampersad has written, Simple is ‘one of the most memorable and winning characters in the annals of American literature, justly regarded as one of Hughes’s most inspired creations.’

Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, went to Cleveland, Ohio, lived for a number of years in Chicago, and long resided in New York City’s Harlem. He graduated form Lincoln University in 1929 and was awarded an honorary Litt. D. in 1943. He was perhaps best known as a poet and the creator of Simple, but he also wrote novels, biography, history, plays several of them Broadway hits, and children’s books, and he edited several anthologies. Mr. Hughes died in 1967.

Simple’s Uncle Sam

Langston Hughes’s most beloved character comes back to life in this extraordinary collectionLangston Hughes is best known as a poet, but he was also a prolific writer of theater, autobiography, and fiction. None of his creations won the hearts and minds of his readers as did Jesse B. Semple, better known as ‘Simple.’ Simple speaks as an Everyman for African Americans in Uncle Sam’s America. With great wit, he expounds on topics as varied as women, Gospel music, and sports heroes but always keeps one foot planted in the realm of politics and race. In recent years, readers have been able to appreciate Simple’s situational humor as well as his poignant questions about social injustice in The Best of Simple and The Return of Simple. Now they can, once again, enjoy the last of Hughes’s original Simple books.

The Early Simple Stories

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 mas*ses 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, more articulate Boyd who has never lived in the South. Their conversations permit Simple to speak the wisdom of the working class. By the time the first book of Simple stories was published, Hughes had honed and polished these two characters, enhancing the distinctions between the vernacular language of Simple and the more educated diction of his friend. Remaining within the Afrocentric world that was his chosen sphere, Hughes makes clear the message that Simple and Boyd are very much alike; both are black men in a racially unbalanced society. Both exist in a world within a world, in Harlem, the separate black community of New York City. Countless exchanges between Simple and his companion offer wit and wisdom that remind contemporary readers why Langston Hughes is so special.

The Later Simple Stories

‘The Collected Works of Langston Hughes’ is a compilation of the novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, and other published work by one of the 20th century’s most prolific and influential African American authors. This volume contains the later of his Simple stories.

The Return of Simple

Jesse B. Simple, Simple to his fans, made weekly appearances beginning in 1943 in Langston Hughes’ column in the Chicago Defender. Simple may have shared his readers feelings of loss and dispossession, but he also cheered them on with his wonderful wit and passion for life.

Not Without Laughter

A leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance, poet Hughes wrote only one novel but it is an incredibly powerful and moving work. This 1930s coming of age tale, which unfolds amid an African American family in rural Kansas, explores the dilemmas of life in a racially divided society.

Tambourines to Glory

For every bustling jazz joint that opened in Korean War era Harlem, a new church seemed to spring up. Tambourines to Glory introduces you to an unlikely team behind a church whose rock was the curb at 126th and Lenox.

Essie Belle Johnson and Laura Reed live in adjoining tenement flats, adrift on public relief. Essie wants to somehow earn enough money to reunite with her daughter and provide her with a nice home; Laura loves young men, mink coats, and fine Scotch. On a day of inspiration, the friends decide to use a thrift store tambourine and a layaway Bible to start a church.

Their sidewalk services are a hit: Laura’s a natural street performer who loves the limelight, while Essie is a charismatic singer with a quiet spirituality. Before long they move to a thousand seat theatre called the Tambourine Temple. The two women are joined in their ministering by Birdie Lee, the little old lady trap drummer who can work the congregation to a feverish pitch, and Deacon Crow For Day, an impassioned confessor.

But then Laura falls for Buddy, a scam artist who suggests selling to the faithful lucky numbers from Scripture and bottles of tap water as Holy Water from the Jordan. Even with a Cadillac and piles of money from Laura, Buddy won t stay faithful, igniting a crime of passion and betrayal.

Harlem Moon Classics is proud to reintroduce readers of all generations to this sparkling gem from the canon of Langston Hughes.

The Ways of White Folks

In these acrid and poignant stories, Hughes depicted black people colliding sometimes humorously, more often tragically with whites in the 1920s and ’30s.

Mule Bone

Mule Bone is the only collaboration between Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, two stars of the Harlem Renaissance, and it holds an unparalleled place in the annals of African American theater. Set in Eatonville, Florida Hurston’s hometown and the inspiration for much of her fiction this energetic and often farcical play centers on Jim and Dave, a two man song and dance team, and Daisy, the woman who comes between them. Overcome by jealousy, Jim hits Dave with a Mule Bone and hilarity follows chaos as the town splits into two factions: the Methodists, who want to pardon Jim; and the Baptists, who wish to banish him for his crime. Included in this edition is the fascinating account of the Mule Bone copyright dispute between Hurston and Hughes that ended their friendship and prevented the play from being performed until its debut production at the Lincoln Center Theater in New York City in 1991 sixty years after it was written. Also included is ‘The Bone of Contention,’ Hurston’s short story on which the play was based; personal and often heated correspondence between the authors; and critical essays that illuminate the play and the dazzling period that came to be known as the Harlem Renaissance.

The Big Sea

Introduction by Arnold Rampersad.

Langston Hughes, born in 1902, came of age early in the 1920s. In The Big Sea he recounts those memorable years in the two great playgrounds of the decade Harlem and Paris. In Paris he was a cook and waiter in nightclubs. He knew the musicians and dancers, the drunks and dope fiends. In Harlem he was a rising young poet at the center of the ‘Harlem Renaissance.’

Arnold Rampersad writes in his incisive new introduction to The Big Sea, an American classic: ‘This is American writing at its best simpler than Hemingway; as simple and direct as that of another Missouri born writer…
Mark Twain.’

I Wonder As I Wander

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 South giving readings of his poetry. His recollections of American journeys place him as well in Carmel, California, and the San Francisco area, where he was befriended by No l Sullivan and was among the set of Hollywood personalities sometimes including James Cagney, Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, as well as Indian mystic J. Krishnamurti. Hughes also shows readers the lighter side of his adventures in the Caribbean, where he experienced the rhythms of Afro Cuban music and the wonders of such sights as the Citadel in Haiti. In 1932, having traveled with a group of African Americans to the Soviet Union to make a film about southern black steelworkers and domestic laborers, Hughes became familiar not only with Moscow’s theatrical life but also with ‘colored’ minorities in the new republics of Soviet Central Asia. As a wanderer, he carried with him a record player and a collection of jazz recordings and became an informal participant in ‘cultural exchange.’ For Hughes, the lack of appreciation of jazz by Russian ideologues was a major flaw in the system. In Tokyo and Shanghai, he learned about Asian global politics and tough street life, and in Paris he reacquainted himself with its nightlife and such personalities as Ada ‘Bricktop’ Smith and Josephine Baker. Throughout his journey, he observed the presence of blacks, whether as entertainers in major capitals or as soldiers on the battlefront in Barcelona and Madrid. His coverage of the Spanish Civil War is a serious report of the tragedy of conscripted North African Moors and the heroic efforts of the International Brigades and such African Americans as Milton Herndon in their fight against fascism. Spain is also a window into flamenco musical culture, where singers such as Pastora Pav n offer their own form of the blues. In rare moments, Hughes reveals aspects of his personal romantic encounters. Also of great interest are his recollections of writers Arthur Koestler, Nicol’s Guill n, Pablo Neruda, and Ernest Hemingway. I Wonder As I Wander shows how Hughes maintained a Harlem derived black consciousness, while expanding it through global wandering.

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