“Hope the journey is a long one,” Constantine Cavafy advises us in his poem “Ithaca.” The journey to complete this book was indeed long but it was also gratifying, full of happy discoveries that offset our moments of distress over missed deadlines.
Along the way we incurred many debts. Above all, we owe much to Judith Jones, who commissioned this book from us, just as she asked us several years ago to prepare what became The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (1994). As Hughes’s last editor at Knopf during his lifetime, she earned his admiration for her efforts on two volumes of his poetry. She is now retired from Knopf but her brilliance as an editor lives on. She has served Hughes and his legacy well. This is why we dedicate this book to her.
In editing Hughes’s books at Knopf, Ms. Jones directly succeeded Blanche Knopf, who awarded him his first publishing contract in 1925 and then worked with him for more than thirty years. When Ms. Jones retired, Deborah Garrison succeeded her in managing this project. We also owe much to Ms. Garrison for her patience and understanding, and for continuing Knopf’s commitment to Langston Hughes.
We also thank various libraries and the librarians who responded so diligently to us as we searched for Hughes’s letters, or searched for information about persons and topics mentioned in his letters. Our indebtedness here begins with the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. The Beinecke houses the Langston Hughes Papers in the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of literary material rooted in African American culture, a landmark collection founded by Hughes’s friend and ally Carl Van Vechten. We are especially grateful to E. C. Schroeder, Director of the Beinecke Library; and to Nancy Kuhl, Curator of Poetry, and Melissa Barton, Curator of Prose and Drama, in the Yale University Collection of American Literature.
We are also indebted to the staffs of the Amistad Research Center, New Orleans; the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley; Special Collections and Archives, the John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library, Fisk University, Nashville; the Special Collections Research Center, Bird Library, Syracuse University, Syracuse; the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Founders Library, Howard University, Washington, D.C.; the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University, New York City; the Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Special Collections and Archives, Langston Hughes Memorial Library, Lincoln University, Pennsylvania; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, New York City; the Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas, Austin; the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Rare Books and Special Collections, Firestone Library, Princeton University, Princeton; the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection, Temple University, Philadelphia; the Paul Robeson Library, Rutgers University, Camden; and the Archibald S. Alexander Library, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
In addition to librarians, many other individuals helped to improve the quality of this book. Near the end of our journey, Professor Arna Alexander Bontemps of Arizona State University provided invaluable assistance in identifying certain figures by drawing on his memories of Langston Hughes, with whom his father, Arna Wendell Bontemps, corresponded for almost forty years. We know that we stand on the shoulders of other scholars and critics who have probed—and are probing—the complexities of Hughes’s life and work, and the circles in which he moved. Some of these scholars and critics are no longer with us but our debt to them remains real. Our task was made easier by the efforts of individuals such as Charles H. Nichols, who published the first edited volume of Hughes’s letters (to Arna Bontemps); George Houston Bass, Hughes’s choice as executor-trustee of his estate; and other pioneering figures such as Richard K. Barksdale; Faith Berry; Thomas Cripps; Donald C. Dickinson; Arthur P. Davis; James A. Emanuel; Nathan I. Huggins; Onwuchekwa Jemie; Bruce Kellner; David Levering Lewis; John F. Matheus; Milton Meltzer; Edward J. Mullen; Kenneth P. Neilson; Therman B. O’Daniel; Hans A. Ostrom; Webster Smalley; Darwin Turner; Jean Wagner; and Thomas H. Wirth.
We also acknowledge our debt to other figures who, in varying degrees, have advanced and are advancing our understanding of the wide world of Langston Hughes. They include Elizabeth Alexander; Giselle L. Anatol; Kwame Anthony Appiah; Valerie Babb; Kate A. Baldwin; Kimberly J. Banks; Juda Bennett; Emily Bernard; Harold Bloom; Marcellus Blount; Michael Borshuk; Dennis Chester; David Chinitz; Martha Cobb; Carrie Cowherd; Rosemary K. Curb; Letitia Dace; Anthony Dawahare; James DeJongh; Christopher C. De Santis; Susan Duffy; Ira Dworkin; Brent H. Edwards; Nicholas M. Evans; Nikky Finney; Karen Jackson Ford; Paul Gardullo; Henry Louis Gates; Sandra Govan; Maryemma Graham; Shane Graham; Sandra M. Grayson; Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper; Carolyn R. Hodges; Dolan Hubbard; George Hutchinson; Richard Jackson; Dianne Johnson; Meta DuEwa Jones; Carla Kaplan; David Krasner; Vera M. Kutzinksi; Brian Loftus; Dellita Martin-Orgunsola; Joseph McLaren; Thomas A. Mikolyzk; W. Jason Miller; R. Baxter Miller; Seth Moglen; David Chioni Moore; David M. Nifong; Thomas H. Nigel; Anita H. Patterson; Jay Plum; Martin J. Ponce; Cheryl R. Ragar; Jahan Ramazani; Donald A. Ritchie; Leslie C. Sanders; Larry Scanlon; Elizabeth Schultz; Jonathan Scott; William Scott; Amritjit Singh; James E. Smethurst; Isabel Soto; H. Nigel Thomas; Michael Thurston; John Edgar Tidwell; Steven C. Tracy; James C. Trotman; Alan M. Wald; Maurice O. Wallace; John Walters; Carmeletta M. Williams; Regennia N. Williams; Gregory Woods; and Robert Young.
Certainly there are others who deserve to be mentioned for their contributions to our knowledge and understanding of Langston Hughes. We are thankful to them all. Lisa Donato served as our first research assistant on this project. Edward Horan, Ciara Barrick, and Kate Brown checked letters at different times. Fred Mench took time away from his own research projects to aid ours. Pamela Beatrice read through the manuscript several times and Bryan Hoffman proofread the manuscript when deadlines loomed large. The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey helped to bring the project to a speedier conclusion by providing sabbatical support to David Roessel for the 2010–2011 academic year. Robert Gregg, formerly Dean of Arts and Humanities at Stockton College, championed the effort, as have Dean Lisa Honaker, Provost Harvey Kesselman, and the Hellenic Studies community of Stockton. Stanford University was also generous in supporting our efforts.
Above all, we are grateful to Langston Hughes himself. In his letters, as in his other writings, he showed those rare qualities of personal grace and steely but principled determination, as well as abundant literary skill, that helped him to create enduring works of art out of the sorrows and joys of his remarkable American life.