Bibliography
Hull, Gloria. Love, Sex, and Poetry: Three Women Writers
of the Harlem Renaissance.Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1987.
Stylus
The literary magazine of HOWARDUNIVERSITY.
Established in 1916 by professors ALAINLOCKE
and THOMASMONTGOMERYGREGORY,Stylusalso
was the first literary magazine published at a his-
torically black American college or university. The
journal was named after a college literary society of
the same name, one with which Locke and Gre-
gory also played key founding roles.
The debut issue included works by Howard
University students as well as prominent figures of
the period such as JAMESWELDONJOHNSONand
WILLIAMSTANLEYBRAITHWAITE. Later issues fea-
tured contributions by CHARLESCHESNUTT,W. E.
B. DUBOIS, and ARTHURSCHOMBURG. The maga-
zine resumed publication in 1921 in the wake of
World War I. It was there that “JOHNREDDING
GOES TOSEA,” the first published work of ZORA
NEALEHURSTON, then a Howard University stu-
dent, appeared in May 1921.
Bibliography
Johnson, Abby Arthur, and Ronald Maberry Johnson.
Propaganda & Aesthetics: The Literary Politics of
African American Magazines in the Twentieth Cen-
tury.Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1979.
Linneman, Russell, ed. Alain Locke: Reflections on a Mod-
ern Renaissance Man.Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University, 1982.
“Subversion”Edythe May Gordon(1928)
A haunting short story by EDYTHEMAEGORDON
that appeared in the June 1928 issue of the SATUR-
DAYEVENINGQUILL.Gordon’s story, one of only
two that she published during the Harlem Renais-
sance, revolves around betrayal and death. John
Marley is dying and grappling with the awful news
he has received from his physician. On the way
home, the financially strapped music teacher slips
and falls on the wet and icy sidewalk. He soaks his
coat and is quite disheveled as he makes his way to
the home of longtime friend Charlie Delany. De-
lany is a good-natured fellow, an unmarried man,
and a successful realtor from whom Marley hopes
to borrow some money. Delany gives him cash and
also insists that Marley take his plush coat. Being
ensconced in the rich, “beaver-lined coat, with the
beaver collar and cuffs... made him feel differ-
ent,” and Marley is imbued with a sense of purpose
once again. Buoyed up by a renewed sense of pride,
he uses some of his borrowed cash to buy small
gifts for his wife and son.
The story takes a tragic turn when Marley ap-
pears at his home. Since his keys are in the coat
that he left at Delany’s, he rings the doorbell, and
Lena answers. In the dark of the hallway, however,
she feels only the coat and fails to recognize the
man wearing it. Believing that Delany is before her,
she whispers words that immediately reveal her af-
fair with the family friend. Marley is devastated by
his wife’s betrayal and by the fact that his son is
not his but Delany’s. Marley maintains his compo-
sure, and when his deceptive friend appears for
Thanksgiving dinner the next day, he asks him to
“be kind to Lena and the boy” because he “can
think of not more appropriate person to ask such a
favor of.” The two guilty parties are silenced by
their shame and Marley’s suffering.
Gordon’s story complements the number of
writings about domesticity, family life, and be-
trayal. “Subversion,” like Gordon’s “If Wishes Were
Horses” (1929), “Patch Quilt” (1940) by Marita
Bonner, and other works, explores the awful pain
of infidelity and domesticity gone awry.Bibliography
Gordon, Edythe Mae. Selected Works of Edythe Mae Gor-
don with introduction by Lorraine Elena Roses.New
York: G. K. Hall & Co., 1996.Sudom LinchaClaude McKay(1923)
CLAUDEMCKAYpublished Sudom Linchain Rus-
sian. The English-language version, whose title
translates to “Trial by Lynching,” was one of two
works that the writer published in Russian. The
second work, Negry v. Amerike,translated as The
Negroes in America,appeared in 1925.
According to scholar Kate Baldwin, Sudom
Linchais especially valuable for the insights it pro-
vides into McKay’s perspectives on race, class, and500 Stylus