Five Plays by Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes

First Edition

[African American][Literature] Hughes, Langston. Five Plays by Langston Hughes. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1968. First Midland Book edition. 258 pages. Original wrappers in brown, orange, and white with bold title typography. 8vo. A powerful collection by one of the foremost literary figures of the Harlem Renaissance, Five Plays by Langston Hughes gathers a selection of dramatic works that reflect the complexities, aspirations, and cultural identity of African American life in the twentieth century. This edition includes Tambourines to Glory, Soul Gone Home, Little Ham, Mulatto, and Simply Heavenly, each bearing witness to Hughes’s commitment to portraying the dignity and struggles of everyday Black lives through a deeply humanistic lens.

Langston Hughes (1901–1967), a foundational voice in the Harlem Renaissance, devoted his career to illuminating African American experience through poetry, fiction, drama, and journalism. Known for his refusal to separate art from the lived realities of race and class in America, Hughes articulated a vibrant Black consciousness rooted in the “little people”—the everyday men and women navigating hardship, joy, and faith. As noted in the volume’s introduction by Webster Smalley, Hughes was uniquely gifted in presenting the “problems and aspirations of the rapidly growing, educated Negro middle- and upper-classes” without losing sight of those “who live constantly on the edge of financial disaster.” These plays serve as a lens into Harlem life, religious and familial tensions, migration and urbanization, and the struggle for self-expression and agency under systemic oppression. Mulatto, first staged in 1935, was among the first Broadway plays to confront racial identity and miscegenation in the American South, while Simply Heavenly, based on his novel Simple Takes a Wife, reflects Hughes’s love of vernacular language and his enduring empathy for the working class. Creasing to upper front wrapper, slight edgewear to spine ends, and light rubbing to rear cover. Minor toning to interior pages, but binding remains firm. Overall very good condition. This volume affirms Hughes’s central place in American literature and theater as an advocate for racial justice and a celebrant of Black life in all its complexity.

Item #21709

Price: $220.00