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Born in Joplin, Missouri, Langston Hughes graduated from Lincoln University in 1929 and gained an outstanding literary reputation as one of the key figures of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, a period that saw a rich proliferation of art, music, and literature that celebrated African-American heritage and experience in the United States. In addition to writing poetry, Hughes worked as a reporter for the Baltimore Afro-American and for the Chicago Defender. He wrote more than twenty-five plays and, in addition, created jazz scores to accompany many of his poems and dramas. "Salvation," an autobiographical essay, first appeared in his collection The Big Sea (1940).

Major Works by Hughes

The Weary Blues (1926)
Scottsboro Limited: Four Poems and a Play (1932)
The Ways of White Folks (1934, fiction)
The Big Sea (1940, prose)
Shakespeare in Harlem (1942)
Jim Crow's Last Stand (1943)
Freedom's Plow (1943)
Lament for Dark Peoples and Other Poems (1944)
Fields of Wonder (1947)
One-Way Ticket (1949)
Simple Speaks His Mind (1950, prose)
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
Laughing to Keep From Crying (1952, fiction)
Ask Your Mama: Twelve Moods for Jazz (1961)
The Panther and the Lash: Poems of Our Times (1967)
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (1994)

Hughes and the Web

Here's a great start page from the Academy of American Poets. It includes a photo, links to poems, a biography, a bibliography, and some other links.

Want to read more by Hughes online? This page has links to five poems by Hughes in etext. The poems change periodically, so check back often.

This is the homepage of The Langston Hughes Review, the journal of the Langston Hughes Society.