New York : Knopf, Date: 2001. First Edition. Hardback. These engaging and wonderfully alive letters paint an intimate portrait of two of the most important and influential figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Carl Van Vechten--older, established, and white--was at first a mentor to the younger, gifted, and black Langston Hughes. But the relationship quickly grew into a great friendship--and for nearly four decades the two men wrote to each other expressively and constantly. They discussed literature and publishing. They exchanged favorite blues lyrics (""So now I know what Bessie Smith really meant by 'Thirty days in jail / With ma back turned to de wall,' "" Hughes wrote Van Vechten after a stay in a Cleveland jail on trumped-up charges). They traded stories about the hottest parties and the wildest speakeasies. They argued politics. They gossiped about the people they knew in common--James Baldwin, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, H. L. Mencken. They wrote from near (of racism in Scottsboro) and far (of dancing in Cuba and trekking across the Soviet Union) , and always with playfulness and mutual affection. Today Van Vechten is a controversial figure; some consider him exploitative, at best peripheral to the Harlem Renaissance--or, indeed, as the author of the novelNigger Heaven, a blemish upon it, and upon Hughes by association. The letters tell a different, more subtle and complex story: Van Vechten did, in fact, help Hughes (and many other young ...

Alfred A. Knopf 2001 Annotated. Hardcover Good Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less.

Alfred A. Knopf 2001 Annotated. Hard cover Good Pages are clean! The dust jacket is missing. The front text block edge is deckled The book is slightly cocked Fast Shipping-Each order powers our free bookstore in Chicago and sending books to Africa!

ISBN10: 0679451137, ISBN13: 9780679451136, [publisher: Knopf] Hardcover Pages are clean! The dust jacket is missing. The front text block edge is deckled The book is slightly cocked Fast Shipping - Each order powers our free bookstore in Chicago and sending books to Africa!
[Skokie, IL, U.S.A.] [Publication Year: 2001]

ISBN10: 0679451137, ISBN13: 9780679451136, [publisher: Alfred A. Knopf] Hardcover Former library book; Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 1.6
[Dallas, TX, U.S.A.] [Publication Year: 2001]

ISBN10: 0679451137, ISBN13: 9780679451136, [publisher: Knopf] Hardcover New
[Long Beach, CA, U.S.A.] [Publication Year: 2001]

ISBN10: 0679451137, ISBN13: 9780679451136, [publisher: Knopf] Hardcover New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed
[Denver, CO, U.S.A.] [Publication Year: 2001]