Jessie Redmon Fauset’s varied and extensive body of literary art encompassed the entire era of the Harlem Renaissance—and beyond. She produced the most essays and novels of any African American woman of the time and was a prolific writer of short stories, essays, and poems for adults and children.

As a writer, editor, mentor, and diplomat, Fauset was an essential, unwavering, and unsung force of the Harlem Renaissance. This volume celebrates Fauset’s exceptional and often overlooked talent as a writer with the first complete collection of her short fiction, poems, and personal essays published in Harlem Renaissance periodicals, anthologies, and literary journals. It includes all of the original illustrations!

From the astounding gamut of Fauset’s writing, this is a collection of her most imaginative work. Her short stories are precursors to her four popular novels, addressing racial identity, self-esteem, gender restraints, class conflicts, and institutional racism. Her poetry is timeless. Her expressive first-person narratives offer insights into the life and times of an extraordinary writer and visionary.

Fauset grew up in Philadelphia and was among the first Black women to graduate from Cornell. While teaching at the prestigious Dunbar High School, she contributed essays, stories, poems, and reviews to The Crisis, a prestigious African American periodical. At the invitation of W.E.B. Du Bois, she became its Literary Editor. During her long and active tenure, Fauset fostered and published many Harlem Renaissance greats, including Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Claude McKay. Fauset co-founded and edited The Brownies’ Book, a magazine designed to entertain and empower African American children, and was one of its main contributors. In his memoir, Langston Hughes commends Fauset as one of the three “midwives” of the Harlem Renaissance.