Normally a copy of Langston Hughes’s Shakespeare in Harlem like this wouldn’t be th

Normally a copy of Langston Hughes’s Shakespeare in Harlem like this wouldn’t be the type of book we acquire. It’s the third printing, its dust jacket is long gone, and the cover well-worn. 

But it’s also an excellent example why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover!  This appears to be Hughes’s own copy of the last edition of this book issued during his lifetime. Not only that, Hughes made changes to fifteen of its poems, some of them dramatic shifts in the tone, rhythm, length, or meaning of the text.

This copy turned up in a sorority house at Lincoln University (Hughes’s alma mater) a couple of years ago, from which it was sold at auction and entered the rare book trade. Much about the volume remains to be discovered.  The changes that Hughes made in this volume have not been published or incorporated into any of the later editions of Hughes’s collected works or poems.