Zora Neale Hurston : Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings : Mules and Men, Tell My Horse, Dust Tracks on a Road, Selected Articles (The Library of America, 75) (Hardcover)

~ Zora Neale Hurston (Author), Cheryl Wall (Editor) "AS I CROSSED the Maitland-Eatonville township line I could see a group on the store porch..." (more)
Key Phrases: diddle dip, hawse hide, gointer kill, Big Sweet, John Henry, Dieu Donnez (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

No Black History Month celebration would be complete without Hurston, and here the venerable Library of America collects a wide range of her work. This two-volume set combines four novels with a selection of short stories; her autobiography presented in unexpurgated form for the first time; and her lesser-known anthropological writings, all of which have been restored by scholar and editor Wall. The Hurston collection is essential for all libraries.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Library of America's companion to Hurston's Novels and Stories presents her nonfiction work, which is perhaps less familiar but no less important than her fiction in the body of black literature. This is the first time the unexpurgated version of her 1942 autobiography, Dust Tracks on the Road, is being published; sections deemed too provocative (dealing with politics, race, and sex) have been restored. Mules and Men (1935) is a collection of African American folklore she gleaned on travels in the South, while Tell My Horse (1938) tenders her personal findings on African-based religion in Jamaica and Haiti. Additionally, 22 magazine and book articles with anthropological themes (Hurston did graduate work in that field) that have never been gathered into book form are corralled here. As readers only familiar with her fiction will discover, she couches her nonfiction in the same visceral yet poetic style--for instance, this quote from Dust Tracks: "It seems to me that trying to live without friends is like milking a bear to get cream for your morning coffee. It is a whole lot of trouble, and then not worth much after you get it." It will never be easier to acquire a complete set of Hurston's nonfiction than now. Brad Hooper

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 1001 pages
• Publisher: Library of America; First Printing edition (February 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0940450844
• ISBN-13: 978-0940450844
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #293,766 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great collection, July 24, 2005

By	Anne Gillingham - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book and its companion from the library of america, have everything that Hurston wrote - except some unedited manuscripts, and some articles and short stories.

Her interest in language, folklore and ritual, and the cult of local color comes through in all of her works. The personalities and struggles, failures and victories of all of her characters become real for the reader.

She is writing earlier in the 20th century, when people were starting to buy radios and automobiles -- she saw a lot of the south, and north, rapidly transform into the beginnings of the consumer culture we know today.

When I read Hurston, it is like I feel an anxiety to preserve. I sense a underlying insight, that she probably had, that within a couple of generations, the rhythm of life would radically change.

I think she saw that a lot of the folk traditions and rituals in North America would disappear, so she did what she could to demonstrate a vibrant african american cultural life, as she knew it, and interpreted it.

The two collections of Hurston's work show the span of her writing, over her lifetime. These pieces reveal how many of her imagination and many of her themes and character-types evolve over the years.

I recommend the two volumes.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Any Hurston writing is worth the reading, July 7, 2000

By	E. Powers "pearlyvictoria" (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The debate of whether Ms Hurston was a true Harlem Renaissance writer is does so little justice to her contributions to that scene that I spent an entire semester debating it. Of course she was and she was one of the writers who helped give it its significance. Just the scene in Jonah's Gourd where she is talking about the physical features of the male protagonist is important enough. Her "peope" are real and you wonder if she had interacted with them in real life because they are your neighbors, relatives and friends...they are just that touchable. Her pain in life comes through all her books but you are so busy savoring her prose that you only wonder about it after you are done. The best thing to do is to gather several authors from that period and read them all. She is among the genius of the era but you will see how far she stands out from the brilliant.