The Harlem Group of Negro Writers, By Melvin B. Tolson

(Hardback)

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Presents the annotated edition of Tolson's 1940 MA thesis, the first academic study of the Harlem Renaissance written by an African American scholar. Melvin B. Tolson (1898-1966) was both a participant in and historian of the Harlem Renaissance, probably the most significant movement in African American literature and culture. Known mostly for his poetry, and an unduly neglected figure in American literary history, Tolson was one of the first African American critics of the Harlem Renaissance. This book is an edition of his 1940 MA thesis, the first academic study of the Harlem Renaissance written by an African American scholar.

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Students and scholars of the Harlme Renaissance will be grateful to Mullen for making Tolson's thesis available. While a master's theses is a proposition maintained by an argument that a candidate advances as a requirement for an academic program of study, Tolson enhances the form, perfecting it as a real document, applicable during his time. He offers an original point of view as a result of research and completes this task with a balance, a credibility, a creativity, and a subtle wit that makes a unique contribution to knowledge.-CLA Journal
"Students and scholars of the Harlme Renaissance will be grateful to Mullen for making Tolson's thesis available. While a master's theses is a proposition maintained by an argument that a candidate advances as a requirement for an academic program of study, Tolson enhances the form, perfecting it as a real document, applicable during his time. He offers an original point of view as a result of research and completes this task with a balance, a credibility, a creativity, and a subtle wit that makes a unique contribution to knowledge."-CLA Journal

Author Bio

MELVIN B. TOLSON (1898-1966), born in Moberly, Missouri, was an important yet often undervalued African American poet, journalist, and dramatist whose fame rests largely on four books of poetry: Rendezvous with America (1944), Libretto for the Republic of Liberia (1953), A Gallery of Harlem Portraits (1979), and Harlem Gallery: Book I, The Curator (1965). He also published a newspaper column, Caviar and Cabbage, which appeared in the Washington Tribune from October 9, 1937 to June 24, 1944. He was named Poet Laureate of Liberia in 1947. In 1966 he received the National Institute and American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. EDWARD J. MULLEN is Professor of Spanish at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where he has taught since 1971. He has been the coeditor of the Afro-Hispanic Review and has published numerous articles on Spanish American and African American literature. His previous books include Afro-Cuban Literature: Critical Junctures (Greenwood, 1998).