'A writer of huge compassion and acute observation, and also of dazzling style . . . Her work is more relevant than ever' DIANA EVANS An incredible collection of writing - both essays and short stories - spanning the long career of Dorothy West. Includes a new introduction by Diana Evans. 'West's work is timelessly cinematic, with painterly visual descriptions and pitch-perfect dialogue that ranges across class, region, race, age, and gender' Emma Garman, Paris Review The stories contained here are as American as jazz, and as wise and multifaceted as their writer. Dorothy West's metier is the unique crucible in which America places its black middle class, but her themes are universal: the daily misunderstandings between young and old, men and women, rich and poor that can lead to tragedy; and the ways in which bonds of family and community can bring us together, and tear us asunder. Dorothy West's autobiographical essays explore the poles of her remarkable life - from growing up black and middle-class in Boston to her near-mythic trip to Moscow in 1933 with Langston Hughes and other Harlem Renaissance writers to life on her beloved Martha's Vineyard. They cohere into a beautiful and poignant memoir of a singular American life, a memoir that communicates with her short stories in a host of fertile ways. Taken as a whole, The Richer, The Poorer is a triumphant celebration of the long life and work of one of America's genuine treasures.

With a new introduction by DIANA EVANS 'Timelessly cinematic, with painterly visual descriptions and pitch-perfect dialogue that ranges across class, region, race, age, and gender' Emma Garman, Paris Review Set on a bucolic Martha's Vineyard in the 1950s, THE WEDDING tells the story of life in the Oval, a proud, insular community made up of the best and brightest of the East Coast's black bourgeoisie. Within this inner circle of 'blue-vein society', we witness the prominent Coles family gather for the wedding of their loveliest daughter, Shelby, who could have chosen from 'a whole area of eligible men of the right colors and the right professions.' Instead, she has fallen in love with and is about to be married to Mead Wyler, a white jazz musician from New York. A shock wave breaks over the Oval as its longtime members grapple with the changing face of its community. Not just the story of one wedding, but of many, this compelling story offers insights into issues of race, prejudice and identity while maintaining its firm belief in the compensatory power of love. Through a delicate interweaving of past and present, North and South, black and white, THE WEDDING unfolds outward from a single isolated time and place until it embraces five generations of an extraordinary American family. It is an audacious accomplishment, a monumental history of the rise of a black middle class, written by a writer who lived it. Wise, heartfelt, and shattering, it is Dorothy West's crowning achievement.

The Messenger was the third most popular magazine of the Harlem Renaissance after The Crisis andOpportunity. Unlike the other two magazines, The Messenger was not tied to a civil rights organization. Labor activist A. Philip Randolph and economist Chandler Owen started the magazine in 1917 to advance the cause of socialism to the black masses. They believed that a socialist society was the only one that would be free from racism.

The socialist ideology of The Messenger "the only magazine of scientific radicalism in the world published by Negroes," was reflected in the pieces and authors published in its pages. The Messenger Reader contains poetry, stories, and essays from Paul Robeson, Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, and Dorothy West.

The Messenger Reader, will be a welcome addition to the critically acclaimed Modern Library Harlem Renaissance series.

Despite her strong associations with Massachusetts - her upbringing in Roxbury, her lifelong connection with Martha's Vineyard, and two novels documenting the Great Migration and the rise and decline of Boston's African American community - Dorothy West (1907-1998) is perhaps best known as a member of the Harlem Renaissance. Between 1927 and 1947, West and her cousin, the poet Helen Johnson, lived in New York City, where West attended Columbia University, worked as a welfare investigator, wrote for the WPA, traveled to Russia, and established a literary magazine for young black writers. During these years, West and Johnson knew virtually everyone in New York's artistic, intellectual, and political circles. Their friends included Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Carl Van Vechten, Richard Wright, Arna Bontemps, Claude McKay, and many others. West moved easily between the bohemian milieu of her artistic soul mates and the respectable bourgeois soirees of prominent social and political figures. In this book, Professors Mitchell and Davis provide a carefully researched profile of West and her circle that serves as an introduction to a well edited, representative collection of her out of print, little known, or unpublished writings, supplemented by many family photographs. The editors document West's ""womanist"" upbringing and her relationships with her mother, Rachel Benson West, and other strong-minded women, including her longtime companion, Marian Minus. The volume includes examples of West's probing social criticism in the form of WPA essays and stories, as well as her interviews with southern migrants. A centerpiece of the book is her unpublished novella, Where the Wild Grape Grows, which explores with grace and gentle irony the complex relationship of three retired women living on Martha's Vineyard. Several of West's exquisitely observed nature pieces, published over a span of twenty years in the Vineyard Gazette, are also reprinted.