VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, DECEMBER 1994
Copyright © 1972 by Robert Nemiroff and Robert Nemiroff, as Executor of the Estate of Lorraine Hansberry
Introduction copyright © 1994 by Margaret B. Wilkerson
Foreword copyright © 1994 by Jewell Handy Gresham Nemiroff
Critical Backgrounds and Postscript Copyright © 1972 by Robert Nemiroff
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover by Random House, Inc., New York, in 1972.
CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that Les Blancs, The Drinking Gourd, and What Use Are Flowers? being fully protected under the Copyright Laws of the United States of America, the British Commonwealth, including the Dominion of Canada, and all other countries of the Berne and Universal Copyright Conventions, are subject to royalty. All rights, including professional, amateur, recording, motion picture, electronic, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved, permission for which must be secured in writing from the author’s agent: the William Morris Agency, 1350 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10019.
Particular emphasis is laid on the question of readings.
The amateur acting rights of Les Blancs, are controlled exclusively by Samuel French, 25 West 45 Street, N.Y., N.Y. 10036. The amateur acting rights of The Drinking Gourd and What Use Are Flowers? are controlled exclusively by Jewell Gresham Nemiroff, Executrix of the Estate of Robert Nemiroff.
The Drinking Gourd: Copyright © 1969 by Robert Nemiroff and Robert Nemiroff, as Executor of the Estate of Lorraine Hansberry.
Portions of Les Blancs, The Drinking Gourd, and What Use Are Flowers? were first published in To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words. Copyright © 1969 by Robert Nemiroff and Robert Nemiroff, as Executor of the Estate of Lorraine Hansberry.
What Use Are Flowers? appeared in slightly different form in Works in Progress—Copyright © 1969, 1972 by Robert Nemiroff and Robert Nemiroff, as Executor of the Estate of Lorraine Hansberry.
Notes on “Follow the Drinking Gourd” and “Steal Away” from Songs of the Civil War by Irwin Silber. Copyright © 1960 by Irwin Silber. Bonanza Books, a division of Crown Publishers. Reprinted by permission of Irwin Silber.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Hansberry, Lorraine, 1930–1965.
Les Blancs: the collected last plays of Lorraine Hansberry.
CONTENTS: Les Blancs.—The drinking gourd.—What use are flowers?
I. Hansberry, Lorraine, 1930–1965. The drinking gourd, 1972. II. Hansberry, Lorraine, 1930–1965. What use are flowers? 1972. III. Title.
PS3515.A515B5 1972 812’.5’4 69-16462
eISBN: 978-0-307-81556-9
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