James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901– May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He famously wrote about the period that “the Negro was in vogue”, which was later paraphrased as “when Harlem was in vogue.”
Books in order of publication:
Poetry collections:
The Weary Blues, Knopf, 1926
Fine Clothes to the Jew, Knopf, 1927
The Negro Mother and Other Dramatic Recitations, 1931
Dear Lovely Death, 1931
The Dream Keeper and Other Poems, Knopf, 1932
Scottsboro Limited: Four Poems and a Play, Golden Stair Press, N.Y., 1932
A New Song (1938, incl. the poem “Let America be America Again”) Madrid 1937 with etchings by Dalla Husband, Gonzalo More, Paris, 1939
Note on Commercial Theatre, 1940
Shakespeare in Harlem, Knopf, 1942
Freedom’s Plow, New York: Musette Publishers, 1943
Jim Crow’s Last Stand, Atlanta: Negro Publication Society of America, 1943
Lament for Dark Peoples and Other Poems, 1944
Lenin, 1946
Fields of Wonder, Knopf, 1947
One-Way Ticket, 1949
Montage of a Dream Deferred, Holt, 1951
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes, 1958
Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz, Hill & Wang, 1961
The Panther and the Lash: Poems of Our Times, 1967
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, Knopf, 1994
Novels and short story collections:
Not Without Laughter. Knopf, 1930
The Ways of White Folks, Knopf, 1934
Simple Speaks His Mind, 1950
Laughing to Keep from Crying, Holt, 1952
Simple Takes a Wife, 1953
The Sweet Flypaper of Life, photographs by Roy DeCarava. 1955
Simple Stakes a Claim, 1957
Tambourines to Glory, 1958
The Best of Simple, 1961
Simple’s Uncle Sam, 1965
Something in Common and Other Stories, Hill & Wang, 1963
Short Stories of Langston Hughes, Hill & Wang, 1996
Non-fiction books:
The Big Sea, New York: Knopf, 1940
Famous American Negroes, 1954
Famous Negro Music Makers, New York: Dodd, Mead, 1955
I Wonder as I Wander, New York: Rinehart & Co., 1956
A Pictorial History of the Negro in America, with Milton Meltzer. 1956
Famous Negro Heroes of America, 1958
Fight for Freedom: The Story of the NAACP. 1962
Black Magic: A Pictorial History of the Negro in American Entertainment, with Milton Meltzer, 1967
Major plays:
Mule Bone, with Zora Neale Hurston, 1931
Mulatto, 1935 (renamed The Barrier, an opera, in 1950)
Troubled Island, with William Grant Still, 1936
Little Ham 1936
Emperor of Haiti, 1936
Don’t You Want to be Free, 1938
Street Scene, contributed lyrics, 1947
Tambourines to Glory, 1956
Simply Heavenly, 1957
Black Nativity, 1961
Five Plays by Langston Hughes, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1963 J
Jerico-Jim Crow, 1964
Books for children:
Popo and Fifina, with Arna Bontemps, 1932
The First Book of the Negroes, 1952
The First Book of Jazz, 1954
Marian Anderson: Famous Concert Singer, with Steven C. Tracy, 1954
The First Book of Rhythms, 1954
The First Book of the West Indies, 1956
First Book of Africa, 1964
Black Misery, illustrated by Arouni, 1969; reprinted 1994, Oxford University Press.
Oak Lawn Library Friends 