The Book of Negro Folklore

by Langston Hughes (Editor), Arna Bontemps (Editor)

A collection of Negro folklore from editors Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps from 1958. A very thorough collection,

Genres: Nonfiction, Folklore, History, Short Stories

624 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1958

About the author

Through poetry, prose, and drama, American writer James Langston Hughes made important contributions to the Harlem renaissance; his best-known works include Weary Blues (1926) and The Ways of White Folks (1934).

People best know this social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist James Mercer Langston Hughes, one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry, for his famous written work about the period, when "Harlem was in vogue."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langsto...

Reviews

[Sara G]

Of course the language is a bit dated but it's still an excellent collection.

[Lisa K]

Read selections. Recording it in case I want to come back to the fact that it's once source for "John Henry" as a ballad. Also John Jasper's "The Sun Do Move."