Hurston Zora Neale - Zora Neale Hurston: a life in letters

Table of Contents

Acclaim for Carla Kaplans

ZORA NEALE HURSTON

This is a wonderful addition to what we need to understand about a spirited, extraordinary life. Alice Walker

[Hurstons] letters have a freshness, humor and immediacy that make you forget how long ago they were written. QuarterlyBlack Review

The letters in Ms. Kaplans collection tell a life story of exceptional interest. The Wall Street Journal

[An] epic collection.... The arrival of these letters is like a beacon cast on Hurstons life. The Orlando Sentinel

From her letters emerges an... articulate but qualitatively different voice, or better yet, chorus of voices, compounding the contradictions of an undeniably courageous life. We can finally see her... served up raw. Africana.com

Hurstons letters reveal an energetic writer.... Beautifully executed. PublishersWeekly

Sublime and intimate.... An intriguing installment in the study of Hurstons work and life. Upscale

The Hurston we revered before this book was only an illusion. ZoraNeale Hurston: A Life in Letters gives us a flesh and blood Hurston with sharp edges and dark corners and endless, enchanting layers. Emily Bernard, author of Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, 19251964

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Letter to writer Dorothy West. Photo Courtesy of Special Collections, Boston University Library.

Hurston imitating a crow. Photographs by Prentiss Taylor. Courtesy of the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Original dust jacket, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Courtesy of the Zora Neale Hurston Estate.

A young Zora Neale Hurston, probably in the early 1920s, Courtesy of the Zora Neale Hurston Collection, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Department of Special Collections.

A young Zora Neale Hurston, probably in the early 1920s. Courtesy of the Zora Neale Hurston Collection, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Department of Special Collections.

Zora Neale Hurston and her car, Cherry, in the 1920s. Courtesy of the Dorothy West Papers, Special Collections, Boston University Library.

Hurston on the Columbia University campus. Courtesy of the Zora Neale Hurston Collection, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Department of Special Collections.

Young Hurston with cigarette. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs.

Hurstons drawing on a letter to Fannie Hurst.

Hurstons drawing on a letter to Alain Locke.

Hurston collecting folklore from Rochelle French and Gabrielle Brown, Eatonville, 1935. Stetson Kennedy photographer, Courtesy of the Folklore Division, Library of Congress.

Hurston at an FWP exhibit in 1938. Courtesy of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

Hurston on a WPA fieldwork trip in the 1930s. Stetson Kennedy photographer, Courtesy of the Zora Neale Hurston Collection, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Department of Special Collections.

Hurston in profile, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1934. Courtesy of the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library and The Estate of Carl Van Vechten, Bruce Kellner, executor.

Hurston sketch on a letter to Charlotte Osgood Mason.

Hurston seated, photographed by Prentiss Taylor. Courtesy of the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Hurstons sketches of herself and Fannie Hurst.

Charcoal sketch of Hurston by Amy Spingarn. Courtesy of the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Hurston in a hat. Courtesy of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

Hurston on a folklore trip. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Jane Belo Papers, Prints and Photographs.

Hurstons Los Angeles home, 2666 Cimarron (in 2001). Russell Dahlquist photographer.

Hurstons hand-drawn and hand-painted Christmas card to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and her husband, Norton Baskin, postmarked December 22, 1948. Courtesy of the Zora Neale Hurston Collection, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Department of Special Collections.

Hurston with friends, late 1950s. Courtesy of the Zora Neale Hurston Collection, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Department of Special Collections.

Sara Lee Creech. Courtesy of Sara Lee Creech.

Patrick Duvall in 2000.

Belle Glade, Florida, in the wake of the 1928 hurricane. Courtesy of Sara Lee Creech.

Fragment of a burned letter from Hurston to William G. Nunn, editor of the Pittsburgh Courier. Courtesy of the Zora Neale Hurston Collection, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Department of Special Collections.

One of the last letters Hurston sent to a publisher, Harper Brothers, Jan. 16, 1959. Courtesy of the Zora Neale Hurston Collection, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Department of Special Collections.

Undated letter fragment. Courtesy of the Zora Neale Hurston Collection, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Department of Special Collections.

NOTE TO THE READER

My aim in editing and annotating these letters has been to make them as accessible as possible while preserving their important idiosyncrasies. Because Hurstons letters will interest readers who have varying degrees of knowledge about her life and times, I have tried to supply background on the events, controversies, and persons she refers to while still allowing the letters to speak for themselves. To keep footnotes to a minimum, much of this background information has been supplied in the introductions to specific decades, the chronology of Hurstons life, and the glossary, which is intended as a brief readers guide. Since most readers will be reading these letters in sequence, persons mentioned in the letters are identified in footnotes on their first occurrence only, to avoid repetition. While the general introduction to this volume offers an orientation to Hurstons life, letters, politics, and writing, the introductions to specific decades add relevant cultural history, hence the overlap of some biographical information supplied in the introduction and that supplied in later sections. Hurstons correspondents are each discussed in the glossary, as are individuals, events, and organizations referred to in her letters. Occasionally, a record was available of how Hurstons letters were answered or about the letter to which she was responding. I have supplied information about such letters in the footnotes when it was possible to do so. The index will point readers toward specific names as well as issues and events and will orient the reader toward those subjects about which further information is provided in the glossary. Those readers who wish to read Hurstons letters by correspondent, rather than chronologically, may wish to consult the Index of Recipients. Works cited in footnotes are not repeated in the selected bibliography, with the exception of reference works that were consulted frequently.