Langston Hughes

Author Information
Langston Hughes's Latest Book

Newest Release

  • Bibliography:
    22 Books
  • First Book:
    June 1930
  • Latest Book:
    April 2023
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Book List in Order: 22 titles

  • Not Without Laughter

    Although best known as a poet and pioneer of the Harlem Renaissance movement, Langston Hughes proves himself one of modern literature’s most revered and versatile African-American authors with Not Without Laughter, a powerful classic novel.This...

  • The Ways of White Folks

    A collection of vibrant and incisive short stories depicting the sometimes humorous, but more often tragic interactions between Black people and white people in America in the 1920s and ‘30s. One of the most important writers to emerge from the Har...

  • The Big Sea: An Autobiography

  • Something in Common, and Other Stories

  • Simple's Uncle Sam

    Langston Hughes's most beloved character comes back to life in this extraordinary collectionLangston Hughes is best known as a poet, but he was also a prolific writer of theater, autobiography, and fiction. None of his creations won the hearts and mi...

  • The Best Short Stories by Black Writers: 1899 - 1967

    A classic anthology of short stories by Black writers including James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and Richard Wright -- edited and with an introduction by Langston Hughes. 

    Originally published in 1967, The Best Short Sto...

  • Simple Speaks His Mind

  • Simple Takes a Wife

  • Laughing to Keep from Crying



  • The Return of Simple

    Collected humorous stories from the iconic American writer’s newspaper column, featuring his most memorable and spirited fictional character.In 1940, Langston Hughes introduced Jesse B. Semple, or “Simple,” to readers in his Chicago Defender co...

  • Short Stories of Langston Hughes

    Stories capturing “the vibrancy of Harlem life, the passions of ordinary black people, and the indignities of everyday racism” by “a great American writer” (Kirkus Reviews).This collection of forty-seven stories written between 1919 and 1963 ...

  • The Dream Keeper

  • The Early Simple Stories

    Jesse B. Semple first sprang to life in Langston Hughes's weekly Chicago Defender column in 1943. Almost immediately, the "Simple stories," as they were routinely called, had a large and ever-increasing audience. Simple soon became Harlem's Everym...

  • Tambourines to Glory

    Finally available in trade paperback, Langston Hughes’s breezy parable of good and evil, friendship and betrayal, is an unforgettable portrait of 1950s Harlem and two women called to the pulpit for very different reasons.For every bustling jazz joi...

  • The Negro Speaks of Rivers

    Langston Hughes has long been acknowledged as the voice, and his poem, The Negro Speaks of Rivers, the song, of the Harlem Renaissance.  Although he was only seventeen when he composed it, Hughes already had the insight to capture in w...

  • Best of Simple

    Langston Hughes's stories about Jesse B. Semple--first composed for a weekly column in the Chicago Defender and then collected in Simple Speaks His Mind, Simple Takes a Wife, and Simple Stakes a Claim--have been read and loved by hundreds of thousand...

  • I, Too, Am America

    The poetic wisdom of Langston Hughes merges with visionary illustrations from Bryan Collier in this inspirational picture book that carries the promise of equality. I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the ki...

  • The Mule-Bone

    Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life is a 1930 play by American authors Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. The process of writing the play led Hughes and Hurston, who had been close friends, to sever their relationship. Mule Bone was not staged unt...

  • Thank You, M'Am

    When a young boy named Roger tries to steal the purse of a woman named Luella, he is just looking for money to buy stylish new shoes. After she grabs him by the collar and drags him back to her home, he's sure that he is in deep trouble. Instead, Rog...



  • Father and Son

    A Vintage Shorts “Short Story Month” Selection   Colonel Norwood is the despotic owner of Big House Plantation, where he lives alone but for the occasional company of his black mistress, Coralee Lewis. But this summer, a new breeze is blowin...

  • Lullaby

    This beloved poem by Langston Hughes, illustrated by the award-winning Sean Qualls, is an irresistible celebration of the love between mother and baby, now available in board book format.Award-winning illustrator Sean Qualls’s painted...

  • An Earth Song

    Discover the power and joy of poetry in the picture book An Earth Song, a simple, modern introduction to Langston Hughes, featuring an ode to spring and long-awaited new beginnings, and heartwarming full-color art by Tequitia Andrews. In this illust...

Award-Winning Books by Langston Hughes

I, Too, Am America
2012 New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association Award -- Picture Book
2013 Coretta Scott King Award -- Illustrator


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Langston Hughes has published 22 books.

Langston Hughes does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, An Earth Song, was published in April 2023.

The first book by Langston Hughes, Not Without Laughter, was published in June 1930.

No. Langston Hughes does not write books in series.
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