Jean Toomer Libri

A masterpiece of the Harlem Renaissance and a significant work in American and African American literature, this revised and expanded Norton Critical Edition of Jean Toomer’s work is now available. Originally published in 1923, it remains an innovative blend of drama, poetry, and fiction. The new edition builds on the 1988 First Edition, edited by pioneering scholar Darwin T. Turner. It begins with an introduction that contextualizes Toomer within American Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance, offering groundbreaking biographical insights and examining his complex racial identity and views on race. The edition includes government documents revealing contradictory information about Toomer’s race, photographs, and a map of Sparta, Georgia, which inspired parts of the work. It reprints Toomer’s 1923 foreword by Waldo Frank, along with revised explanatory annotations. The “Backgrounds and Sources” section features autobiographical writings, including a chapter from *The Wayward and the Seeking* and Toomer’s essay on Gurdjieff. Additionally, it includes thirty letters from 1919–30 to notable figures like Waldo Frank and Georgia O’Keeffe. The “Criticism” section showcases significant interest in the work, featuring contemporary reviews and twenty-one major interpretations spanning eight decades. A new Chronology and updated Selected Bibliography are also included.

A breakthrough in prose and poetical writing. . . . This book should be on all readers' and writers' desks and in their minds.-Maya Angelou