Zora Neale Hurston Literature
Complete stories, The
Introduction by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Sieglinde Lemke
Author: Hurston, Zora Neale
A collection of short stories, most of which appeared in literary magazines
during the author's lifetime, along with previously unpublished works, spans
the career of one of the century's foremost Black authors
New York: HarperCollins, copyright 1995, 305 p.
Notes:
Introduction by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Sieglinde Lemke
Author Web Sites:
1. Voices from the Gap: Zora Neale Hurston : Features a biography of the author,
a selected bibliography, works about the author, and related links.
Other Contributors:
Gates, Henry Louis, 1950-; Lemke, Sieglinde
ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0060167327
0060921714 : Paperback
0606191941 : DEMCO Turtleback
Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Baker & Taylor
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 003589
Every tongue got to confess: Negro folk-tales from the Gulf states
Zora Neale Hurston ; foreword by John Edgar Wideman ; edited and with an introduction
by Carla Kaplan
Author: Hurston, Zora Neale, editor
A book of folktales about love, slavery, faith, family, race, and community,
collected in the late 1920s, represents a large part of the author's literary
legacy and details African American life in the rural South.
New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001, xxxiv, 279 p.
Kirkus Reviews /* Starred Review */ This entertaining collection, which was
left unpublished in 1929 and only recently unearthed, is a fine companion to
Hurston's earlier volumes, Tell My Horse (1937) and Mules and Men (1935).
The late (1891–1960) author of the classic novels Jonah's Gourd Vine and
Their Eyes Were Watching God was also a knowledgeable folklorist, as we learn
again from John Edgar Wideman's tributory foreword and Editor Kaplan's informative
introduction. The latter discusses Hurston's energetic research into indigenous
tales and legends, supported by minimal grants, the WPA, and a wealthy white
patron. The stories themselves—ranging from single-sentence utterances
to fully detailed and developed anecdotes—are arranged in 17 specific
categories focusing on such subjects as gender relations ("Women Tales");
racial inequity and enmity ("Massa and White Folks Tales"); creation
stories, many akin to Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus stories ("Talking
Animal Tales"); and several varieties of folk supernaturalism ("God
Tales," "Devil Tales"). Frequent use of racial epithets and dialect
reminiscent of minstrel shows will probably offend many contemporary readers,
but are indisputable evidence of the authenticity of Hurston's presentations:
in almost every case of stories she heard directly from ordinary people, many
of them illiterate. There is inevitable repetition, but not as much as one might
expect. And there are many pleasures: impudent alternative versions of familiar
biblical tales and good-natured mockery of religious truisms ("What in
the hell does …[an] angel need with … [Jacob's] ladder when he's
got wings"); sly references to racial imperatives (a black man falling
off a roof notices he's about to land on a white woman—"so he turnt
right roun' and fell back upon dat house"); a ribald explanation of why
women don't serve in the army, and several clever one-liners about the physical
(and marital) problems encountered by snails.
A rich harvest of native storytelling.
(Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2001)
Author Web Sites:
1. Voices from the Gap: Zora Neale Hurston : Features a biography of the author,
a selected bibliography, works about the author, and related links.
Other Contributors:
Kaplan, Carla: editor; Wideman, John Edgar
ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0060188936
0060934549 : Paperback
0694526452 : Cassette - Audio
Credits:
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
• Baker & Taylor
• Publishers Weekly, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 065363
Jonah's gourd vine: a novel
With a new foreword by Rita Dove
Author: Hurston, Zora Neale
John Buddy Pearson, a young Black man who becomes a popular pastor at Zion Hope,
is unable to reconcile his good intentions and his natural instincts
New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1990, copyright 1934, 229 p.
Kirkus Reviews An exceptionally fine negro story -- written from the inside
-- essentially human, pulsing with the rhythms of the race, filled with emotional
value, colorful, dramatic, alive. John, a "bright skin", adored by
his mother, hated and feared by his foster father, pursued by all the girls
on the plantation to which he goes when he leaves home -- a full-blooded, highly
strung, healthy animal -- is the central character. And his career, bringing
joy and sorrow, pain and blessing, in his rise to fame as the greatest preacher
of them all, and his fall from the pedestal, is epochal in the telling. Written
by a negress, there is a note of authority -- but its ultimate value rests on
its own merits as racial document and a good tale.
(Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 1934)
Other related features:
1. Book Discussion Guide - Their Eyes Were Watching God
Author Web Sites:
1. Voices from the Gap: Zora Neale Hurston : Features a biography of the author,
a selected bibliography, works about the author, and related links.
Other Contributors:
Dove, Rita
ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0060916516 : Paperback
0783802552 : Hardcover - Large Print
0809590174 : Hardcover
Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Baker & Taylor
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 035506
Moses, man of the mountain
Zora Neale Hurston ; with a foreword by Deborah E. McDowell
Author: Hurston, Zora Neale
Moses becomes the leader of his people in order to rescue them from bondage.
New York, N.Y.: HarperPerennial, 1991, xxiv, 310 p.
Notes:
Originally published: New York : J.B. Lippincott, 1939
Lexile:
830
Other related features:
1. Book Discussion Guide - Their Eyes Were Watching God
Author Web Sites:
1. Voices from the Gap: Zora Neale Hurston : Features a biography of the author,
a selected bibliography, works about the author, and related links.
Other Contributors:
McDowell, Deborah E., 1951-
ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0060919949
0809590336 : Hardcover - Religious
0833570005 : Glued Binding
0252011228 : Paperback - University Press
Credits:
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
• Baker & Taylor
• World Historical Fiction: An Annotated Guide to Novels for Adults and
Young Adults, published by Oryx Press
• MetaMetrics, Inc.
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 035507
Novels and stories
Author: Hurston, Zora Neale
The first volume of a noted African-American writer's collection includes Their
Eyes Were Watching God, Jonah's Gourd Vine, Moses, Man of the Mountain, and
Seraph on the Suwanee.
New York: Library of America, copyright 1995, 1041 p.
Booklist Review: Hurston flowered under the warming sun of the Harlem Renaissance, the black arts' explosion centered in Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s. After years of neglect, she died a forgotten figure, but her reputation blossomed anew in the late 1970s. Hurston's permanent place in the canon of U.S. literature is now assured, for her second novel, "Their Eyes Were Watching God" (1937), is considered a classic and is taught in the college classroom. The estimable Library of America series draws together between the covers of one volume all four of her novels and a goodly selection of her short stories. That she was mother to the likes of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison is tangible. It's obvious they learned from Hurston's use of black folklore as the "materiel" of her fiction and admire her richly soaring language, which is derived from black dialect. Her novels and stories--the latter a form she didn't use as effectively--relate the loves and woes of black and white people from in and around the southern communities she knew so well; one novel, "Moses, Man of the Mountain" (1939), has a biblical setting, and it's still an enrapturing interpretation of a story told many times before. Libraries without a complete set of Hurston's fiction will find this volume a necessary and easy purchase to fill that unfortunate gap. ((Reviewed January 1, 1995)) -- Brad Hooper
Library Journal Review: This two-volume set brings together for the first time
all of Hurston's best works: four novels, two books of folklore, and the first
complete edition of her famous autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road.
Author Web Sites:
1. Voices from the Gap: Zora Neale Hurston : Features a biography of the author,
a selected bibliography, works about the author, and related links.
Other titles associated with this book:
Stories and novels
Jonah's gourd vine
Their eyes were watching God
Moses, man of the mountain
Seraph on the Suwanee
ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0940450836
Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Baker & Taylor
• Booklist, published by the American Library Association
• Library Journal, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 003590
Skull talks back and other haunting tales, The
collected by Zora Neale Hurston ; adapted by Joyce Carol Thomas ; illustrated
by Leonard Jenkins
Author: Hurston, Zora Neale
Inspired by stories from the rural south, a collection of terrifying tales includes
a skinless witch, a talking skull, and a man more evil than the devil, as collected
by the famous African-American writer Zora Neale Hurston.
[New York]: HarperCollins, c2004, 56 p.
School Library Journal Review: Gr 4-6–Thomas retells six supernatural folktales selected from Hurston's Every Tongue Got to Confess (HarperCollins, 2001). The subject matter is sufficiently scary to give young readers a thrill, and Jenkins's spooky black-and-white paintings of skeletons, skulls, arrogant men, eerie cats, and nighttime swirls of fog perfectly set the stage for shivers. Thomas omits most of the dialect and supplies missing motivation. In "The Witch Who Could Slip off Her Skin," the reteller adds silly explanatory paragraphs telling why this witch would "ride" people who had done her wrong. She eliminates the character of "Marster" from "Big Sixteen," here called "Big, Bad Sixteen." "Bill, the Talking Mule," a tale in which a farmer is frightened when his animals suddenly speak to him, retains all of the surprise hilarity of the original. An adapter's note doesn't explain the changes so much as review the content. Although mostly faithful to Hurston's tales, the retellings read like fragments from some larger work that begin in the middle and end abruptly, a fact that may trouble readers who expect more shape to a story. However, this volume introduces a small part of the huge body of literature collected in the rural South in the 1920s and the person who helped put words to paper.–Susan Hepler, Burgundy Farm Country Day School, Alexandria, VA (Reviewed October 1, 2004) (School Library Journal, vol 50, issue 10, p168)
Kirkus Reviews A talking mule, a talking skull, a witch who slips her skin,
and a man so powerful that he's not admitted to heaven or hell star in this
appealing but flawed companion to What's The Hurry, Fox? and Other Animal Stories
(p. 331), illustrated by Bryan Collier. Jenkins's semi-abstract, black-and-white
scenes of ghosts and bones add eerie atmosphere to the six folktales; Thomas
has recast Hurston's original, thick dialect into a modern idiom, while nicely
preserving that country flavor: "No, Pa, that mule's done gone to talking,
I tell you. I ain't going." But some of the stories are only fragments,
and the collection as a whole is jumbled; a boaster named High Walker dies in
one tale, but isn't introduced until a later one, and Thomas's introduction
has, oddly, been placed at the end. Hurston's work merits a less clumsy introduction
to young readers, and Mary Lyon's Raw Head, Bloody Bones (1991) is only one
of many similar folktale gatherings with a higher chill factor. (source notes)
(Folktales. 8-10)
(Kirkus Reviews, July 14, 2004)
Other related features:
1. Explore Fiction - Children's -> Explore Fiction -> Horror -> Short
Stories
Author Web Sites:
1. Voices from the Gap: Zora Neale Hurston : Features a biography of the author,
a selected bibliography, works about the author, and related links.
Other Contributors:
Thomas, Joyce Carol; Jenkins, Leonard: ill
ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0060006315
006000634X
Credits:
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
• Baker & Taylor
• Booklist, published by the American Library Association
• School Library Journal, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20041220
• TID: 130738
Their eyes were watching God
Zora Neale Hurston ; with a foreword by Edwidge Danticat
Author: Hurston, Zora Neale
Meet the unforgettable Janie Crawford, an articulate African-American woman
in the 1930s. Traces Janie's quest for identity, through three marriages, on
a journey to her roots.
New York: HarperCollins, 2000, c1937, xxii, 231 p.