Melvin B. Tolson's Books

A Gallery of Harlem Portraits

By: Melvin B. Tolson

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A Gallery of Harlem Portraits is Melvin B. Tolson's first book-length collection of poems. It was written in the 1930s when Tolson was immersed in the writings of the Harlem Renaissance, the subject of his master's thesis at Columbia University, and will provide scholars and critics a rich insight into how Tolson's literary picture of Harlem evolved. Modeled on Edgar Lee Master's Spoon River Anthology and showing the influence of Browning and Whitman, it is rooted in the Harlem Renaissance in its fascination with Harlem's cultural and ethnic diversity and its use of musical forms. Robert M. Farnsworth's afterword elucidates these and other literary influences. Tolson eventually attempted to incorporate the technical achievements of T.S. Eliot and the New Criticism into a complex modern poetry which would accurately represent the extraordinary tensions, paradoxes, and sophistication, both highbrow and lowbrow, of modern Harlem. As a consequence his position in literary history is problematical. The publication of this earliest of his manuscripts will help clarify Tolson's achievement and surprise many of his readers with its readily accessible, warmly human poetic portraiture.

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Page Count

288

Publisher

University of Missouri Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0826273130

ISBN 13

9780826273130

Dunfords Travels Everywheres

By: William Melvin Kelley

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Dunfords Travels Everywheres

By: William Melvin Kelley

William Melvin Kelley's final work, a Joycean, Rabelaisian romp in which he brings back some of his most memorable characters in a novel of three intertwining stories. Ride on out with Rab and Turt, two o'New Afriqueque's toughfast, ruefast Texnosass Arangers, as they battle Chief Pugmichillo and ricecure Mr. Charcarl Walker-Rider. Cut in on Carlyle Bedlowe, wrecker of marriage, saver of souls. Or just along with Chig Dunford, product of Harlem and private schools, on the circular voyage of self-discovery that takes him from Europe's Cafe of One Hand to Harlem's Jack O'Gee's Golden Grouse Bar & Restaurant. Beginning on an August Sunday in one of Europe's strangest cities, Dunfords Travels Everywheres but always returns back to the same point--the "Begending"--where Mr. Charcarl's dream becomes Chig Dunford's reality (the "Ivy League Negro" in the world outside the Ivory Tower).

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Page Count

208

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Anchor

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ISBN 10

1984899384

ISBN 13

9781984899385

A Gallery of Harlem Portraits

By: Melvin B. Tolson

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A Gallery of Harlem Portraits

By: Melvin B. Tolson

Melvin B. Tolson's Harlem Gallery, published in 1965 as the first book of a projected epic, drew impressive literary praise while it offered a demanding critical challenge._ The publication here for the first time of A Gallery of Harlem Portraits, Tolson's first book-length collection of poems, will provide scholars and critics a rich insight into how Tolson's literary picture of Harlem evolved._ The poems paint lively portraits of Harlem men and women of all colors and ways of life in the 1930s.

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Page Count

288

Publisher

University of Missouri Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0826202802

ISBN 13

9780826202802

Book's by Melvin B. Tolson

A Gallery of Harlem Portraits

A Gallery of Harlem Portraits

Dunfords Travels Everywheres

Dunfords Travels Everywheres

A Gallery of Harlem Portraits

A Gallery of Harlem Portraits

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