Not Without Laughter (Norton Critical Editions)

This Norton Critical Edition includes:The text of Hughes’s debut novel (1930), a coming-of-age story set in 1910s Kansas and Chicago, annotated to explain historical allusions for 21st-century readers.An introduction by R.

Baxter Miller, situating the novel alongside other genres of fiction and the blues, exploring Hughes’s relationship with White patronage, and demonstrating the novel’s influence upon later Black writers.Excerpts from Hughes’s personal correspondence and a rich selection of his writings on his own young adulthood, Black artistry, humor, music, and aesthetics.Four contemporary responses to the novel.Modern critical essays on topics such as the portrayal of women in the novel, writing during the Harlem Renaissance, and literary modernism.A chronology of Hughes’s life and a selected bibliography.