Five Plays.

HUGHES, Langston.

$1,250.00

Item Number: 139812

Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1963.

First edition of this collection of five of Hughes’ best-known plays. Octavo, original cloth. Association copy, inscribed by the author with a full page inscription on the front free endpaper, “Especially for Geoffrey ~ some of my plays ~ Sincerely ~ Langston Hughes New York April 22, 1964.” The recipient, BBC producer Geoffrey Bridson, co-produced the now famous nineteen-part BBC series The Negro in America which offered a kaleidoscopic portrait of African-Americans’ contribution to twentieth century culture as well as some raw insights into the Civil Rights struggle that was then rapidly gathering momentum. First broadcast in the opening weeks of 1965, one of the most memorable episodes in the series explored the subject of African-American writing with Langston Hughes chairing a discussion between Le Roi Jones (later known as Amiri Baraka) and James Baldwin, who had just published his celebrated collection of essays about race and one of the most influential works on race relations published in the twentieth century: The Fire Next Time. With Bridson’s bookplate to the pastedown. Very good in a very good dust jacket. Jacket design by Ronald Sterkel. Edited and with an Introduction by Webster Smalley. A very nice association.

One of the most celebrated figures of the Harlem Renaissance, poet, novelist and social activist Langston Hughes is widely considered one of the most important American writers of the 20th century. Through his poetry and fiction, Hughes sought not only to portray the experience of working-class blacks in America, but redefine, expand, and celebrate African American identity. This purpose he summed up in a one-sentence summary of his life’s goal in response to a request from Who’s Who in America: “My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind” (Rampersand, 418). “More than any other American writer, Langston Hughes brought African American culture and traditions into American literature” (Oxford Encyclopedia, 237). Five Plays contains 5 of Hughes' most popular plays: Mulatto, Soul Gone Home, Little Ham, Simply Heavenly and the Broadway production Tambourines to Glory.