Hazzard’s play is an incisive critique of assimi-
lation and its limits.
“Little Virgin, The” Langston Hughes(1927)
A vivid short story by LANGSTONHUGHES. Pub-
lished in the December 1927 issue of THEMES-
SENGER,the story was inspired by Hughes’s own
adventures in the early 1920s as a shipmate aboard
the SS Malone,a cargo ship that was bound for
ports in Senegal, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and other
African countries.
“The Little Virgin” is a young man aboard
the West Llana,a ship with a multiracial crew that
is bound for AFRICA. The protagonist, who is
never identified by name, is nicknamed “The Lit-
tle Virgin” because of his lack of sexual experi-
ence. He suffers mightily at the hands of the crew
and becomes “the daily butt of sailors’ jibes and
vulgar jokes... everything the youngster did or
said by day became a subject for ribald wit and
ridicule on the after-hatch.” The tormented sailor
eventually finds a friend known as Mike from
Newark. Unfortunately, however, shortly after the
ship docks in Senegal, the two men are involved
in a violent bar fight. In the melee that prompts
the Little Virgin to lapse into heaving crying fits
and melancholy, “a black woman spring[s] at
Mike, her fingers like claws, and in her turn
fall[s] backwards, struck in the face, among the
tables and the feet of the sailors.” The Little Vir-
gin has attempted to come to the aid of the
woman whom Mike from Newark has physically
attacked. The story closes as the Little Virgin suc-
cumbs to delirium and is taken onshore in Cal-
abar for medical treatment. He has been uttering
the words, “Oughtn’t to hit a woman... No, no,
no.. .” and continues to do so even as he is re-
moved from the ship.
Hughes’s short story is rich for its caricatures
of life aboard ship. It also is powerful for its sugges-
tion that a young white man may be overcome by
the specter of African womanhood and violent
white male disregard for women of color.
Bibliography
Berry, Faith, ed. Langston Hughes: Before and Beyond
Harlem.Westport, Conn.: Lawrence Hill & Com-
pany, 1983.
Liveright, Horace Brisbin(1886–1933)
A publisher, theater producer, and inventor who
established himself in NEWYORKCITYduring the
Harlem Renaissance. He was born in Osceola
Mills, Pennsylvania, to Henry and Henrietta
Fleisher Liveright. An enterprising young man, he
was 17 years old when he was on the verge of stag-
ing his first show, John Smith,a comic opera, in
New York. He married Lucile Elas, the daughter of
an International Paper Company executive, in
1911 and the couple had two children, Herman
and Lucy, before they divorced in 1928. In 1931
Liveright remarried. His marriage to Elise Bartlett
Porter, a divorced actress, ended quickly. The two
were divorced in 1932.
Liveright’s career in publishing began in 1917
when he became partners with ALBERT BONI.
The two men, who met while working in the Al-
fred Wallerstein advertising agency, hoped to start
their business by reprinting modern classics.
Their company, BONI &LIVERIGHT, became
known first for the Modern Library series. This
collection included reprints of works by Oscar
Wilde, August Strindberg, Guy de Maupassant,
and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Boni’s involvement ended shortly after the firm
was established, but Liveright maintained the busi-
ness and began to focus on American writers and
the active literary community in New York City.
Liveright also enjoyed publication successes with
works by THEODOREDREISER, William Faulkner,
Ernest Hemingway, and EUGENEO’NEILL. In 1923,
shortly after Liveright attended the historic CIVIC
CLUBdinner sponsored by CHARLESS. JOHNSON
and OPPORTUNITY,the firm published Cane,the
celebrated compilation of prose and poetry by JEAN
TOOMER. Other prominent Harlem Renaissance
publications were PLUM BUN (1929) by JESSIE
FAUSET, the celebrated anthology THE NEW
NEGRO (1925) edited by ALAIN LOCKE, and
TROPICDEATH(1926) by ERICWALROND.
The demise of Boni & Liveright was quite dra-
matic. Liveright sold the popular and financially
stable Modern Library division in 1925 but ne-
glected to discuss his plans with company employ-
ees. Their efforts to halt the deal were thwarted
when an outraged husband stormed the office. He
wanted to kill Liveright, who was having an affair
with his wife, and by the time the situation was de-316 “Little Virgin, The”