Lost Plays of the Harlem Renaissance, 1920-1940

edited by James V. Hatch and Leo Hamalian

A valuable contribution to African American literary and theatrical scholarship, this volume is a compilation of sixteen plays written during the Harlem Renaissance, brought together for the first time and set in a historical context.

This compilation of sixteen plays written during the Harlem Renaissance brings together for the first time the works of Langston Hughes, George S. Schuyler, Francis Hall Johnson, Shirley Graham, and others. In the introduction, James V. Hatch sets the plays in a historical context as he describes the challenges presented to artists by the political and social climate of the time. The topics of the plays cover the realm of the human experience in styles as wide-ranging as poetry, farce, comedy, tragedy, social realism, and romance. Individual introductions to each play provide essential biographical background on the playwrights.

In the continuing rediscovery of writers and works from the Harlem Renaissance, Lost Plays of the Harlem Renaissance 1920-1940 serves as essential background for contemporary readers and is a valuable contribution to African American literary and theatrical scholarship.

Paperback | 468 pages | Wayne State University Press | 1996

Leo Hamalian, a Ph.D. from Columbia University, is a professor of English at The City College of New York. He has written or edited more than one dozen volumes, including As Others See Us and In Search of Eden, and is currently editor of Ararat.

James V. Hatch is a professor of English at the City University of New York. A Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, he edited Black Theatre in the U.S.A., 1847-1974 and Black Playwrights, 1825-1977: An Annotated Bibliography.