Below I’ll give you my selections for the best Langston Hughes books by a few categories. I will cover these and other great books more in depth later.
- Selected Poems of Langston Hughes: A Classic Collection of Poems by a Master of American Verse (Vintage Classics) (1990)
- I Wonder as I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey (American Century Series) (1993)
- The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (Vintage Classics) (1995)
- The Ways of White Folks: Stories (Vintage Classics) (1990)
- Not Without Laughter (Penguin Classics) (2018)
- The Best of Simple: Stories (American Century) (1990)
- The Big Sea: An Autobiography (American Century Series) (1993)
- The Short Stories of Langston Hughes (1997)
- The Dream Keeper and Other Poems (1996)
- The Best Short Stories by Black Writers, 1899-1967: The Classic Anthology (1969)
- Vintage Hughes (2004)
- The Life of Langston Hughes: Volume I: 1902-1941, I, Too, Sing America (Life of Langston Hughes, 1902-1941) (2002)
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes: A Classic Collection of Poems by a Master of American Verse (Vintage Classics) (1990)
With the publication of his first book of poems, , in 1926, Langston Hughes electrified readers and launched a renaissance in black writing in America. The poems Hughes wrote celebrated the experience of invisible men and women: of slaves who "rushed the boots of Washington"; of musicians on Lenox Avenue; of the poor and the lovesick; of losers in "the raffle of night." They…
I Wonder as I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey (American Century Series) (1993)
In I Wonder as I Wander, Langston Hughes vividly recalls the most dramatic and intimate moments of his life in the turbulent 1930s.His wanderlust leads him to Cuba, Haiti, Russia, Soviet Central Asia, Japan, Spain (during its Civil War), through dictatorships, wars, revolutions. He meets and brings to life the famous and the humble, from Arthur Koestler to Emma, the Black Mammy of Moscow.
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (Vintage Classics) (1995)
"The ultimate book for both the dabbler and serious scholar–. [Hughes] is sumptuous and sharp, playful and sparse, grounded in an earthy music–.
The Ways of White Folks: Stories (Vintage Classics) (1990)
In these acrid and poignant stories, Hughes depicted black people colliding–sometimes humorously, more often tragically–with whites in the 1920s and ’30s.
Not Without Laughter (Penguin Classics) (2018)
When first published in 1930, Not Without Laughter established Langston Hughes as not only a brilliant poet and leading light of the Harlem Renaissance but also a gifted novelist.
The Best of Simple: Stories (American Century) (1990)
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.
The Big Sea: An Autobiography (American Century Series) (1993)
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.
The Short Stories of Langston Hughes (1997)
The Short Stories of Langston HughesThis 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.
The Dream Keeper and Other Poems (1996)
Illus. in black-and-white. This classic collection of poetry is available in a handsome new gift edition that includes seven additional poems written after The Dream Keeper was first published. In a larger format, featuring Brian Pinkney’s scratchboard art on every spread, Hughes’s inspirational message to young people is as relevant today as it was in 1932.
The Best Short Stories by Black Writers, 1899-1967: The Classic Anthology (1969)
Collects short stories by African American writers such as James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ralph Ellison, and Alice Walker
Vintage Hughes (2004)
Arguably the most important writer to emerge from the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and ‘30s, Langston Hughes was a great poet and a shrewd and lively storyteller. His work blends elements of blues and jazz, speech and song, into a triumphant and wholly original idiom.
The Life of Langston Hughes: Volume I: 1902-1941, I, Too, Sing America (Life of Langston Hughes, 1902-1941) (2002)
February 1, 2002 marks the 100th birthday of Langston Hughes. To commemorate the centennial of his birth, Arnold Rampersad has contributed new Afterwords to both volumes of his highly-praised biography of this most extraordinary and prolific American writer.
Best Langston Hughes Books that Should be on Your Bookshelf
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The Art and Imagination of Langston Hughes
Author(s): Miller, R.;
ID: 3382680, Publisher: UP of Kentucky, Year: 2021, Size: 419 Kb, Format: epub
Cultural Entanglements: Langston Hughes and the Rise of African and Caribbean Literature
Author(s): Shane Graham (author)
ID: 3039050, Publisher: University of Virginia Press, Year: 2020, Size: 854 Kb, Format: epub
Zora and Langston: a story of friendship and betrayal
Author(s): Hughes, Langston;Hurston, Zora Neale;Taylor, Yuval
ID: 2605438, Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, Year: 2019, Size: 15 Mb, Format: epub
Please note that this booklist is not absolute. Some books are really hot items according to Los Angeles Times, others are written by unknown writers. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant books you could recommend? Drop a comment if you have any feedback on the list.