Zora Neale Hurston

#paperback #fiction #blackhistory #theireyeswerewatchinggod #classic #zoranealehurston 

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

New York

"Belongs in the category ... of enduring American literature." -- Saturday Review Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

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A Novel

Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.

Alice Walker

Deborah G. Plant

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Louisiana

The Story of the Last Black Cargo

New York Times Bestseller A major literary event: a newly published work from the author of the American classic Their Eyes Were Watching God, with a foreword from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker, brilliantly illuminates the horror and injustices of slavery as it tells the true story of one of the last-known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade—abducted from Africa on the last "Black Cargo" ship to arrive in the United States. In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation’s history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo’s firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States. In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau, the African-centric community three miles from Mobile founded by Cudjo and other former slaves from his ship. Spending more than three months there, she talked in depth with Cudjo about the details of his life. During those weeks, the young writer and the elderly formerly enslaved man ate peaches and watermelon that grew in the backyard and talked about Cudjo’s past—memories from his childhood in Africa, the horrors of being captured and held in a barracoon for selection by American slavers, the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage packed with more than 100 other souls aboard the Clotilda, and the years he spent in slavery until the end of the Civil War. Based on those interviews, featuring Cudjo’s unique vernacular, and written from Hurston’s perspective with the compassion and singular style that have made her one of the preeminent American authors of the twentieth-century, Barracoon masterfully illustrates the tragedy of slavery and of one life forever defined by it. Offering insight into the pernicious legacy that continues to haunt us all, black and white, this poignant and powerful work is an invaluable contribution to our shared history and culture.

Barracoon

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Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

California

Stories from the Harlem Renaissance

From "one of the greatest writers of our time" (Toni Morrison)--the author of Barracoon and Their Eyes Were Watching God--a collection of remarkable stories, including eight "lost" Harlem Renaissance tales now available to a wide audience for the first time.



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In 1925, Barnard student Zora Neale Hurston--the sole black student at the college--was living in New York, "desperately striving for a toe-hold on the world." During this period, she began writing short works that captured the zeitgeist of African American life and transformed her into one of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Nearly a century later, this singular talent is recognized as one of the most influential and revered American artists of the modern period.



Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick is an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African American folk culture. Brought together for the first time in one volume, they include eight of Hurston's "lost" Harlem stories, which were found in forgotten periodicals and archives. These stories challenge conceptions of Hurston as an author of rural fiction and include gems that flash with her biting, satiric humor, as well as more serious tales reflective of the cultural currents of Hurston's world. All are timeless classics that enrich our understanding and appreciation of this exceptional writer's voice and her contributions to America's literary traditions.

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick

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From "one of the greatest writers of our time" (Toni Morrison)--the author of Barracoon and Their Eyes Were Watching God--a collection of remarkable stories, including eight "lost" Harlem Renaissance tales now available to a wide audience for the first time. In May 1925, Barnard student Zora Neale Hurston--the sole black student at the college--was living in New York, "desperately striving for a toe-hold on the world." During this period, she began writing short works that captured the zeitgeist of African American life and transformed her into one of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Nearly a century later, this singular talent is recognized as one of the most influential and revered American artists of the modern period. Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick is an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African American folk culture. Brought together for the first time in one volume, they include eight of Hurston's "lost" Harlem stories, which were found in forgotten periodicals and archives. These stories challenge conceptions of Hurston as an author of rural fiction and include gems that flash with her biting, satiric humor, as well as more serious tales reflective of the cultural currents of Hurston's world. All are timeless classics that enrich our understanding and appreciation of this exceptional writer's voice and her contributions to America's literary traditions.

Tennessee

A Memoir

First published in 1942 at the height of her popularity, Dust Tracks on a Road is Zora Neale Hurston's candid, funny, bold, and poignant autobiography, an imaginative and exuberant account of her rise from childhood poverty in the rural South to a prominent place among the leading artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance. As compelling as her acclaimed fiction, Hurston's very personal literary self-portrait offers a revealing, often audacious glimpse into the life -- public and private -- of an extraordinary artist, anthropologist, chronicler, and champion of the black experience in America. Full of the wit and wisdom of a proud, spirited woman who started off low and climbed high, Dust Tracks on a Road is a rare treasure from one of literature's most cherished voices.

Dust Tracks on a Road

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An Autobiography

An account by the African-American author of her rise to a place of prominence among American writers.

Henry Louis Gates

Genevieve West

Connecticut

'One of the greatest writers of our time.' Toni Morrison 'You Don't Know Us Negroes adds immeasurably to our understanding of Hurston ... her words make it impossible for readers to consider her anything but one of the intellectual giants of the 20th century.' The New York Times Book Review Introduction by New York Times bestselling author Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Genevieve West Spanning more than 35 years of work, the first comprehensive collection of essays, criticism, and articles by the legendary author of the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston, showcasing the evolution of her distinctive style as an author. You Don't Know Us Negroes is the quintessential gathering of provocative essays from one of the world's most celebrated writers, Zora Neale Hurston. Spanning more than three decades and penned during the backdrop of the birth of the Harlem Renaissance, Montgomery bus boycott, desegregation of the military, and school integration, Hurston's writing articulates the beauty and authenticity of Black life as only she could. Collectively, these essays showcase the roles enslavement and Jim Crow have played in intensifying Black people's inner lives and culture rather than destroying it. She argues that in the process of surviving, Black people re-interpreted every aspect of American culture--"modif[ying] the language, mode of food preparation, practice of medicine, and most certainly religion." White supremacy prevents the world from seeing or completely recognizing Black people in their full humanity and Hurston made it her job to lift the veil and reveal the heart and soul of the race. These pages reflect Hurston as the controversial figure she was - someone who stated that feminism is a mirage and that the integration of schools did not necessarily improve the education of Black students. Also covered is the sensational trial of Ruby McCollum, a wealthy Black woman convicted in 1952 for killing her lover, a white doctor. Demonstrating the breadth of this revered and influential writer's work, You Don't Know Us Negroes and Other Essays is an invaluable chronicle of a writer's development and a window into her world and mind.

You Don't Know Us Negroes and Other Essays

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Introduction by New York Times bestselling author Henry Louis Gates Jr. Spanning more than 35 years of work, the first comprehensive collection of essays, criticism, and articles by the legendary author of the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston, showcasing the evolution of her distinctive style as an archivist and author. "One of the greatest writers of our time."--Toni Morrison One of the most acclaimed artists of the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston was a gifted novelist, playwright, and essayist. Drawn from three decades of her work, this anthology showcases her development as a writer, from her early pieces expounding on the beauty and precision of African American art to some of her final published works, covering the sensational trial of Ruby McCollum, a wealthy Black woman convicted in 1952 for killing a white doctor. Among the selections are Hurston's well-known works such as "How It Feels to be Colored Me" and "My Most Humiliating Jim Crow Experience." The essays in this essential collection are grouped thematically and cover a panoply of topics, including politics, race and gender, and folkloric study from the height of the Harlem Renaissance to the early years of the Civil Rights movement. Demonstrating the breadth of this revered and influential writer's work, You Don't Know Us Negroes and Other Essays is an invaluable chronicle of a writer's development and a window into her world and time.

North Carolina

Mules and Men

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Ishmael Reed

Virginia

Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica

"Strikingly dramatic, yet simple and unrestrained . . . an unusual and intensely interesting book richly packed with strange information."

--New York Times Book Review

Based on Zora Neale Hurston's personal experiences in Haiti and Jamaica, where she participated as an initiate rather than just an observer of voodoo practices during her visits in the 1930s, this travelogue into a dark world paints a vividly authentic picture of the ceremonies, customs, and superstitions of voodoo.

Tell My Horse

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The author recounts her experiences as an initiate into the voodoo practices of Haiti and Jamaica in the 1930s

Sieglinde Lemke

Georgia

This landmark gathering of Zora Neale Hurston's short fiction—most of which appeared only in literary magazines during her lifetime—reveals the evolution of one of the most important African American writers. Spanning her career from 1921 to 1955, these stories attest to Hurston's tremendous range and establish themes that recur in her longer fiction. With rich language and imagery, the stories in this collection not only map Hurston's development and concerns as a writer but also provide an invaluable reflection of the mind and imagination of the author of the acclaimed novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.

The Complete Stories

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Illinois

John Buddy Pearson, a young Black man who becomes a popular pastor at Zion Hope, is unable to reconcile his good intentions and his natural instincts

Jonah's Gourd Vine

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A never before published novel from beloved author Zora Neale Hurston, revealing the historical Herod the Great--not the villain the Bible makes him out to be but a religious and philosophical man who lived a life of valor and vision. In the 1950s, as a continuation of Moses, Man of the Mountain, Zora Neale Hurston penned a historical novel about one of the most infamous figures in the Bible, Herod the Great. In Hurston's retelling, Herod is not the wicked ruler of the New Testament who is charged with the "slaughter of the innocents," but the forerunner of Christ--a beloved king who enriched Jewish culture and brought prosperity and peace to Judea. From the peaks of triumph to the depths of human misery, the historical Herod "seemed to have been singled out by some deity and especially endowed to attract the zigzag lightning of fate," Hurston writes. An intimate of both Marc Antony and Julius Caesar, the Judean king lived during the first century BCE, in a time of war and imperial expansion that was rife with political assassinations and bribery, as the old world gave way to the new. Portraying him within this vivid and dynamic world of antiquity, little known to modern readers, Hurston's unfinished manuscript brings this complex, compelling, and misunderstood leader fully into focus. Hurston shared her findings about Herod's rise, his reign, and his waning days in letters to friends and associates. Text from three of these letters concludes the manuscript in an intimate way. Scholar-Editor Deborah Plant's "Commentary: A Story Finally Told" assesses Hurston's pioneering work and underscores Hurston's perspective that the first century has much to teach us, and the lens through which to view this dramatic and stirring era is the life and times of Herod the Great.

The Life of Herod the Great

Blyden Jackson

A retelling of the story of Moses serves as an allegory for the struggle of American Blacks for release from slavery

Moses, Man of the Mountain

Hazel V. Carby

This novel of turn-of-the-century white "Florida Crackers" marks a daring departure for Zora Neale Hurston, the author famous for her complex accounts of Black culture and heritage.

Full of insights into the nature of love, attraction, faith, and loyalty, Seraph on the Suwanee is the compelling story of two people at once deeply in love and deeply at odds. With the same passion and understanding that have made Their Eyes Were Watching God a classic, Zora Neale Hurston explores the evolution of a marriage full of love but very little communication and the desires of a young woman in search of herself and her place in the world.

Seraph on the Suwanee

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Negro Folk-Tales from the Gulf States

Every Tongue Got to Confess is an extensive volume of African American folklore that Zora Neale Hurston collected on her travels through the Gulf States in the late 1920s. The bittersweet and often hilarious tales -- which range from longer narratives about God, the Devil, white folk, and mistaken identity to witty one-liners -- reveal attitudes about faith, love, family, slavery, race, and community. Together, this collection of nearly 500 folktales weaves a vibrant tapestry that celebrates African American life in the rural South and represents a major part of Zora Neale Hurston's literary legacy.

Every Tongue Got to Confess

Langston Hughes

Texas

A Comedy of Negro Life

The only collaboration between the two brightest lights of the Harlem Renaissance--Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes

In 1930, two giants of African American literature joined forces to create a lively, insightful, often wildly farcical look inside a rural Southern black community--the three-act play Mule Bone. In this hilarious story, Jim and Dave are a struggling song-and-dance team, and when a woman comes between them, chaos ensues in their tiny Florida hometown. This extraordinary theatrical work broke new ground while triggering a bitter controversy between the collaborators that kept it out of the public eye for sixty years.

This edition of the rarely seen stage classic features Hurston's original short story, "The Bone of Contention," as well as the complete recounting of the acrimonious literary dispute that prevented Mule Bone from being produced or published until decades after the authors' deaths.

Mule Bone

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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.

Jonah's Gourd Vine / Their Eyes Were Watching God / Moses, Man of the Mountain / Seraph on the Suwanee / Stories

The Library of America is dedicated to publishing America's best and most significant writing in handsome, enduring volumes, featuring authoritative texts. Hailed as the "finest-looking, longest-lasting editions ever made" (The New Republic), Library of America volumes make a fine gift for any occasion. Now, with exactly one hundred volumes to choose from, there is a perfect gift for everyone.

Zora Neale Hurston: Novels and Stories (LOA #74)

The Sanctified Church is a collection of Hurston's ground-breaking essays on Afro-American folklore, legend, popular mythology, and, in particular, the unique spiritual character of the Southern Black Christian Church. Along with preserving the customs, music, speech, and humor of rural Black America, The Sanctified Church introduces us to such extraordinary figures as Mother Catherine, matriarchal founder of a highly personal Voodoo Christian sect; Uncle Monday, healer, conjurer, and powerful herb doctor; and High John de Conquer, the trickster/shaman figure of freedom and laughter still honored in parts of rural Black America today. A pioneering ethnographer and folklore scholar, the great Zora Neale Hurston captured the exuberance, vitality and genius of Black culture with a vividness and authority unmatched by any other writer. (Back cover).

The Sanctified Church

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Edith Wharton

Djuna Barnes

Kate Chopin

Sui Sin Far

Nella Larsen

Gertrude Stein

Eliabeth Stoddard

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" is one of the key texts in American women's fiction and also a rallying cry for feminism. Since its original printing in 1892, it has been routinely anthologized in collections of women's literature, American literature, and textbooks. This volume gathers nine other equally momentous stories by a diverse group of renowned American women authors who changed the world with their compelling tales. These ten stories testify to the power of the imagination to create personal transformation and political change. Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) was an American author of novels, short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. She was also a utopian feminist who gained fame and developed a social circle of like-minded activists and writers of the feminist movement as she lectured widely for social reform. She is most known today for her semi-autobiographical short story "The Yellow Wallpaper."Ulrich Baer earned a B.A. from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Yale. A widely published author, he is University Professor at New York University, and has been awarded Guggenheim, Getty, and Alexander von Humboldt fellowships. He has written numerous books on poetry, photography and cultural politics, and edited and translated Rainer Maria Rilke's The Dark Interval, Letters on Life, and Letters to a Young Poet. He hosts leading writers and artists on the "Think About It" podcast. In the Warbler Press Contemplations series, he has published: Nietzsche, Rilke, Dickinson, Wilde, and Shakespeare on Love.

The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories of Liberation

Bob Callahan

Three Tales

Remarkable for their immediacy of attention to the spoken rhythm and motion of life, Spunk is a maginficent legacy from a writer whose work has sparked one of the major literary revivals of our time. These stories, many of which are collected here for the first time, focus on the rural Black community of Eatonville, Florida, and on Harlem during the height of the Harlem Renaissance. Hurston's characters run the gamut from the vengeful lovers to conmen to powerful and resourceful women, and range from the downhome to the legendary and fabulous. Together they form a matchless celebrtion of the vitality and exuberance of Black culture. As always, Hurston's prose is bright and brassy and true, distinguishing her as an American original who has rightly been called the heart behind an entire generation of modern Black women writers.

Spunk

Written by Zora Neale Hurston

Now frequently anthologized, Zora Neale Hurston's short story "Sweat" was first published in Firell, a legendary literary magazine of the Harlem Renaissance, whose sole issue appeared in November 1926. Among contributions by Gwendolyn Bennett, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and Wallace Thurman, "Sweat" stood out both for its artistic accomplishment and its exploration of rural Southern black life. In "Sweat" Hurston claimed the voice that animates her mature fiction, notably the 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God; the themes of marital conflict and the development of spiritual consciousness were introduced as well. "Sweat" exemplifies Hurston's lifelong concern with women's relation to language and the literary possibilities of black vernacular.

This casebook for the story includes an introduction by the editor, a chronology of the author's life, the authoritative text of "Sweat," and a second story, "The Gilded Six-Bits." Published in 1932, this second story was written after Hurston had spent years conducting fieldwork in the Southern United States. The volume also includes Hurston's groundbreaking 1934 essay, "Characteristics of Negro Expression," and excerpts from her autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road. An article by folklorist Roger Abrahams provides additional cultural contexts for the story, as do selected blues and spirituals. Critical commentary comes from Alice Walker, who led the recovery of Hurston's work in the 1970s, Robert Hemenway, Henry Louis Gates, Gayl Jones, John Lowe, Kathryn Seidel, and Mary Helen Washington.

Sweat

Negro Folk-tales from the Gulf States

Mules and Men is a treasury of black America's folklore as collected by a famous storyteller and anthropologist who grew up hearing the songs and sermons, sayings and tall tales that have formed an oral history of the South since the time of slavery. Returning to her hometown of Eatonville, Florida, to gather material, Zora Neale Hurston recalls a hilarious night with a pinch of everything social mixed with the storytelling. Set intimately within the social context of black life, the stories, big old lies, songs, Vodou customs, and superstitions recorded in these pages capture the imagination and bring back to life the humor and wisdom that is the unique heritage of African Americans.

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Oregon

"A deeply soulful novel that comprehends love and cruelty, and separates the big people from the small of heart, without ever losing sympathy for those unfortunates who don't know how to live properly. . . . Hurston believed in the transformative power of storytelling, and she took risks with sentiment that few contemporary writers are prepared to make."--Zadie Smith Zora Neale Hurston's beloved classic--a PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick--available in a special gift edition. Originally published in 1937, Their Eyes Were Watching God has become one of the most important and enduring works of modern American literature. Written with Zora Neale Hurston's singular wit and pathos, this Southern love story recounts Janie Crawford's "ripening from a vibrant, but voiceless, teenage girl into a woman with her finger on the trigger of her own destiny." A tale of awakening and independence featuring a strong female protagonist driven to fulfill her passions and ambitions, Their Eyes Were Watching God is a masterpiece of the Harlem Renaissance and perhaps the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the American literary canon.

Their Eyes Were Watching God (Deluxe Edition)

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Pamela Bordelon

N. Hurston Zora

Gift inscription inside front cover- otherwise in like new condition 

Arizona

Writings by Zora Neale Hurston from the Federal Writers Project

Gathers local folklore, folk songs, childrens games, and essays on race, the Black church, and Black artists

Go Gator and Muddy the Water

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Ibram X. Kendi

Michigan

A First Folktale from the creators of Magnolia Flower, Zora Neale Hurston and Ibram X. Kendi, about the origin of butterflies. The Creator wuz all finished and thru makin' de world. But soon, the Creator finds themselves flying through the sky, making gorgeous butterflies of every color, shape, and size. Find out why butterflies were made in Zora Neale Hurston's stunning and layered African American folktale retold by #1 New York Times bestselling and National Book Award-winning author Ibram X. Kendi and illustrated by Kah Yangni. This accessible and sizable board book is perfect for introducing the youngest of readers to the beauty of Hurston's storytelling and will spark curiosity in children about how things in our world came to be.

Browse by categories

Zora Neale Hurston

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Zora Neale Hurston

Barracoon

Zora Neale Hurston

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick

Zora Neale Hurston

Dust Tracks on a Road

Zora Neale Hurston

You Don't Know Us Negroes and Other Essays

Zora Neale Hurston

Mules and Men

Zora Neale Hurston

Tell My Horse

Zora Neale Hurston

The Complete Stories

Zora Neale Hurston

Jonah's Gourd Vine

Zora Neale Hurston

The Life of Herod the Great

Zora Neale Hurston

Moses, Man of the Mountain

Zora Neale Hurston

Seraph on the Suwanee

Zora Neale Hurston

Every Tongue Got to Confess

Langston Hughes

Mule Bone

Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston: Novels and Stories (LOA #74)

Zora Neale Hurston

The Sanctified Church

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories of Liberation

Zora Neale Hurston

Spunk

Zora Neale Hurston

Sweat

Zora Neale Hurston

Every Tongue Got to Confess

Zora Neale Hurston

Mules and Men

Zora Neale Hurston

Their Eyes Were Watching God (Deluxe Edition)

Zora Neale Hurston

Go Gator and Muddy the Water

Zora Neale Hurston

The Making of Butterflies