was part of the tradition of piercing works of do-
mestic realism produced by a number of Harlem
Renaissance writers.
Bibliography
Roses, Lorraine Elena, and Ruth Elizabeth Randolph.
Harlem Renaissance and Beyond: Literary Biographies
of 100 Black Women Writers, 1900–1945.Boston: G.
K. Hall & Co., 1990.
Draper, Muriel (1891–1956)
An American whose British literary salon counted
Pablo Casals and Henry James among its atten-
dees. When she returned to the United States in
the 1920s, Draper started a literary salon that
catered to Harlem Renaissance writers and artists.
She became a patron and editor; it was she who
edited BORN TOBE,the lively autobiography by
TAYLORGORDON. She published her own autobi-
ography, Music at Midnight,in 1929.
Bibliography
Muriel Draper Papers, Beinecke Library, Yale University.
Dream Keeper and Other Poems, The
Langston Hughes(1932)
Published by KNOPFin 1932, this volume of poems
by LANGSTONHUGHESwas prompted by a request
from Effie Lee Power, a librarian and nationally rec-
ognized figure in the field of children’s literature,
for works that would appeal to children. Hughes
wrote new pieces for this collection but also drew
from THEWEARYBLUESand FINECLOTHES TO
THEJEW,two of his earlier works. Helen Sewell pro-
vided the illustrations to this book that Hughes
dedicated to Gwyn Clark, his beloved stepbrother.
Bibliography
Rampersad, Arnold. The Life of Langston Hughes: I, Too,
Sing America.Vol. 1, 1902–1941.New York: Oxford
University Press, 1986.
Dreiser, Theodore(1871–1945)
A white writer of naturalism whose best literary
success occurred during the Harlem Renaissance.
The Indiana-born author of Sister Carrie(1900)
and Jennie Gerhardt(1911) published his novel An
American Tragedy,a work inspired by a well-known
murder case of the period, in 1925.
Dreiser traveled with LANGSTON HUGHES
when the League of American Writers commis-
sioned both men to represent the organization at
the Congress for Peace Action and Against Bomb-
ing of Open Cities. Dreiser proved to be an unreli-
able partner; Hughes was the one who kept their
appointments. In 1933, Dreiser was one of several
well-known writers who agreed to donate work to
the auction and benefit for the SCOTTSBOROBoys
that Hughes was involved in organizing.Bibliography
Bernard, Emily. Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of
Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten.New York:
Knopf, 2001.
Rampersad, Arnold. The Life of Langston Hughes: I, Too,
Sing America.Vol. 1, 1902–1941.New York: Oxford
University Press, 1986.“Drenched in Light”Zora Neale Hurston
(1924)
A short story by ZORANEALEHURSTONthat ap-
peared in the December 1924 issue of OPPORTU-
NITY,one of several stories that she published while
attending HOWARDUNIVERSITY, but the first to
appear in a national magazine.
The story revolves around Isis Watts, an irre-
pressible 11-year-old girl whose well-meaning an-
tics are often misunderstood. A protagonist who
recalls the child protagonist Frado in Harriet Wil-
son’s Our Nig(1859), Isis ends up entertaining a
white couple with her grand dreams and imagin-
ings about her future life. She escapes punishment
and detention when her temporary new guardians
persuade the grandmother to let them take Isis
with them to dance downtown.
The figure of the strong female matriarch,
the young girl whose coming of age is a painful
process of containment, and the female desire for
unmediated self-expression establish early similar-
ities to later Hurston works, especially THEIR
EYESWEREWATCHINGGODand her autobiogra-
phy DUSTTRACKS ON AROAD.It was this story
that Hurston used to establish her first contacts122 Draper, Muriel