Books

Of the following time periods, only the Chicago Black Renaissance is formally recognized by historians and scholars; the rest were coined by Adam Morgan for personal research. Books are listed in order of publication year, and loosely categorized based on timeframe. This listing is by no means a definitive classification; it is meant only as an organizing device.

Early Chicago (1830s-1880s)

Barriers Burned Away by E.P. Roe (1872)
Culture’s Garland by Eugene Field (1887)
A Little Book of Western Verse by Eugene Field (1899)

The World’s Fair Renaissance (1890s-1900s)

The Chevalier of Pensieri-Vani by Henry Blake Fuller (1890)
Main-Travelled Roads by Hamlin Garland (1891)
Jason Edwards: An Average Man by Hamlin Garland (1892)
Second Book of Verse by Eugene Field (1892)
With Trumpet and Drum by Eugene Field (1892)
A Member of the Third House by Hamlin Garland (1892)
A Little Norsk by Hamlin Garland (1892)
A Spoil of Office by Hamlin Garland (1892)
Valeria and other Poems by Harriet Monroe (1892)
The Chatelaine of La Trinité by Henry Blake Fuller (1892)
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases by Ida B. Wells (1892)
Why the Colored American is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition by Ida B. Wells (1893)
The Columbian Ode by Harriet Monroe (1893)
The Cliff-Dwellers by Henry Blake Fuller (1893)
Prairie Folks by Hamlin Garland (1893)
Prairie Songs by Hamlin Garland (1893)
Love-Songs of Childhood by Eugene Field (1894)
Crumbling Idols by Hamlin Garland (1894)
A Modern King Lear by Jane Addams (1894)
Ethical Survivals in City Politics by Jane Addams (1894)
Rose of Dutcher’s Coolly by Hamlin Garland (1895)
With the Procession by Henry Blake Fuller (1895)
The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States by Ida B. Wells (1895)
The Puppet Booth by Henry Blake Fuller (1896)
The House by Eugene Field (1896)
The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac by Eugene Field (1896)
John Wellborn Root: A Study of His Life and Work by Harriet Monroe (1896)
Wayside Courtships by Hamlin Garland (1897)
Mother Goose in Prose by L. Frank Baum (1897)
By the Candelabra’s Glare by L. Frank Baum (1898)
The Spirit of Sweetwater by Hamlin Garland (1898)
Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character by Hamlin Garland (1898)
From the Other Side by Henry Blake Fuller (1898)
A Book of Verses by Edgar Lee Masters (1898)
The Trail of the Gold Seekers by Hamlin Garland (1899)
Boy Life on the Prairie by Hamlin Garland (1899)
Father Goose: His Book by L. Frank Baum (1899)
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser (1900)
A New Wonderland by L. Frank Baum (1900)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1900)
The Eagle’s Heart by Hamlin Garland (1900)
The Last Refuge by Henry Blake Fuller (1900)
Mob Rule in New Orleans: Robert Charles and His Fight to Death, the Story of His Life, Burning Human Beings Alive, Other Lynching Statistics by Ida B. Wells (1900)
Under the Skylights by Henry Blake Fuller (1901)
Her Mountain Lover by Hamlin Garland (1901)
American Fairy Tales by L. Frank Baum (1901)
The Snapping of the Bow by James D. Corrothers (1901)
The Black Cat Club by James D. Corrothers (1902)
Democracy and Social Ethics by Jane Addams (1902)
The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop by Hamlin Garland (1902)
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum (1902)
The Pit by Frank Norris (1903)
Hesper by Hamlin Garland (1903)
The Passing Show – Five Modern Plays in Verse by Harriet Monroe (1903)
The Light of the Star by Hamlin Garland (1904)
The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1904)
In Reckless Ecstasy by Carl Sandburg (1904)
Incidentals by Carl Sandburg (1904)
The Tyranny of the Dark by Hamlin Garland (1905)
Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1905)
The Woggle-Bug Book by L. Frank Baum (1905)
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (1906)
Witch’s Gold by Hamlin Garland (1906)
The Long Trail by Hamlin Garland (1907)
Money Magic by Hamlin Garland (1907)
Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1907)
Newer Ideals of Peace by Jane Addams (1907)
The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets by Jane Addams (1907)
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum (1908)
The Shadow World by Hamlin Garland (1908)
Waldo Trench and Others by Henry Blake Fuller (1908)
The Boy Fortune Hunters in Egypt by L. Frank Baum (1908)
The Boy Fortune Hunters in Panama by L. Frank Baum (1908)
The Plaint of the Rose by Carl Sandburg (1908)
The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum (1909)
The Moccasin Ranch by Hamlin Garland (1909)
The Glory of the Conquered by Susan Glaspell (1909)

The Modernist Renaissance (1910s-1920s)

The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1910)
Twenty Years at Hull House by Jane Addams (1910)
Cavanagh, Forest Ranger by Hamlin Garland (1910)
Songs and Sonnets by Edgar Lee Masters (1910)
Other Main-Travelled Roads by Hamlin Garland (1910)
The Visioning by Susan Glaspell (1911)
Dance of the Seasons by Harriet Monroe (1911)
Victor Ollnee’s Discipline by Hamlin Garland (1911)
Jennie Gerhardt by Theodore Dreiser (1911)
The Autobiography of Gurdon by Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard (1911, Lakeside Classics)
The Financier by Theodore Dreiser (1912)
Reminiscences of Early Chicago (1912, Lakeside Classics)
A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil by Jane Addams (1912)
At the Closed Gate of Justice by James D. Corrothers (1913)
Reminiscences of Chicago During the Forties and Fifties (1913, Lakeside Classics)
A Traveler at Forty by Theodore Dreiser (1913)
A Little Dreaming by Fenton Johnson (1913)
You and I – Poems by Harriet Monroe (1914)
The Forester’s Daughter by Hamlin Garland (1914)
The Titan by Theodore Dreiser (1914)
Reminiscences of Chicago During the Civil War (1914, Lakeside Classics)
Visions of the Dusk by Fenton Johnson (1915)
The “Genius” by Theodore Dreiser (1915)
Women at the Hague by Jane Addams (1915)
Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters (1915)
Bib Ballads by Ring Lardner (1915)
The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather (1915)
Reminiscences of Chicago During the Great Fire (1915, Lakeside Classics)
You Know Me Al by Ring Lardner (1916)
Songs of the Soil by Fenton Johnson (1916)
Champion by Ring Lardner (1916)
A Hoosier Holiday by Theodore Dreiser (1916)
Plays of the Natural and Supernatural by Theodore Dreiser (1916)
The Long Road of Woman’s Memory by Jane Addams (1916)
In Spite of the Handicap by James D. Corrothers (1916)
They of the High Trails by Hamlin Garland (1916)
Songs and Satires by Edgar Lee Masters (1916)
Fiddler Jones by Edgar Lee Masters (1916)
The Great Valley by Edgar Lee Masters (1916)
Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg (1916)
Windy McPherson’s Son by Sherwood Anderson (1916)
Marching Men by Sherwood Anderson (1917)
Lines Long and Short by Henry Blake Fuller (1917)
A Son of the Middle Border by Hamlin Garland (1917)
Profiles of China by Eunice Tietjens (1917)
Gullible’s Travels by Ring Lardner (1917)
Treat ‘Em Rough by Ring Lardner (1918)
Cornhuskers by Carl Sandburg (1918)
Free and Other Stories by Theodore Dreiser (1918)
The Hand of the Potter by Theodore Dreiser (1918)
On the Stairs by Henry Blake Fuller (1918)
Toward the Gulf by Edgar Lee Masters (1918)
Body and Raiment by Eunice Tietjens (1919)
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson (1919)
Starved Rock by Edgar Lee Masters (1919)
Bertram Cope’s Year by Henry Blake Fuller (1919)
Twelve Men by Theodore Dreiser (1919)
History of the American Negro in the Great World War by W. Allison Sweeney (1919)
Hey Rub-a-Dub-Dub: A Book of the Mystery and Wonder and Terror of Life by Theodore Dreiser (1920)
Smoke and Steel by Carl Sandburg (1920)
Poor White by Sherwood Anderson (1920)
Moon-Calf by Floyd Dell (1920)
Tales of Darkest America by Fenton Johnson (1920)
The Big Town by Ring Lardner (1921)
A Daughter of the Middle Border by Hamlin Garland (1921)
The Triumph of the Egg by Sherwood Anderson (1921)
Erik Dorn by Ben Hecht (1921)
The New Poetry: Anthology of 20th Century Verse by Harriet Monroe (1921)
Jake by Eunice Tietjens (1921)
A Pioneer Mother by Hamlin Garland (1922)
Slabs of the Sunburnt West by Carl Sandburg (1922)
Peace and Bread in Times of War by Jane Addams (1922)
A Book About Myself by Theodore Dreiser (1922)
Rootabaga Stories by Carl Sandburg (1922)
A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago by Ben Hecht (1922)
Gargoyles by Ben Hecht (1922)
Fantazius Mallare by Ben Hecht (1922)
Rootabaga Pigeons by Carl Sandburg (1923)
The Color of a Great City by Theodore Dreiser (1923)
Many Marriages by Sherwood Anderson (1923)
Horses and Men by Sherwood Anderson (1923)
The Book of the American Indian by Hamlin Garland (1923)
The Florentine Dagger by Ben Hecht (1923)
Kingdom of Evil by Ben Hecht (1924)
How to Write Short Stories by Ring Lardner (1924)
So Big by Edna Ferber (1924)
Haircut by Ring Lardner (1925)
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser (1925)
Dark Laughter by Sherwood Anderson (1925)
Tar: A Midwest Childhood by Sherwood Anderson (1926)
Poets And Their Art by Harriet Monroe (1926)
Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years by Carl Sandburg (1926)
Moods: Cadenced and Declaimed by Theodore Dreiser (1926)
Trail-Makers of the Middle Border by Hamlin Garland (1926)
The Westward March of American Settlement by Hamlin Garland (1927)
Chains: Lesser Novels and Stories by Theodore Dreiser (1927)
Prevailing Winds by Margaret Ayer Barnes (1928)
Abe Lincoln Grows Up by Carl Sandburg (1928)
Prairie Song and Western Story by Hamlin Garland (1928)
Back-Trailers from the Middle Border by Hamlin Garland (1928)
Dreiser Looks at Russia by Theodore Dreiser (1928)
My City by Theodore Dreiser (1929)
A Gallery of Women by Theodore Dreiser (1929)
Gardens of This World by Henry Blake Fuller (1929)
Leaves in Windy Weather by Eunice Tietjens (1929)
Round Up by Ring Lardner (1929)

The Chicago Black Renaissance (1930s-1940s)

Black Man’s Verse by Frank Marshall Davis (1935)
I Am the American Negro by Frank Marshall Davis (1937)
Through Sepia Eyes by Frank Marshall Davis (1938)
Uncle Tom’s Children by Richard Wright (1938)
Big White Fog by Theodore Ward (1938)
The Man Who Was Almost a Man by Richard Wright (1940)
Native Son by Richard Wright (1940)
How “Bigger” Was Born; Notes of a Native Son by Richard Wright (1940)
12 Million Black Voices: A Folk History of the Negro in the United States by Richard Wright (1941)
For My People by Margaret Walker (1942)
The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright (1942)
Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City by St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton, Jr. (1945)
A Street in Bronzeville by Gwendolyn Brooks (1945)
Black Boy by Richard Wright (1945)
American Daughter by Era Bell Thompson (1946)
Knock on Any Door by Willard Motley (1947)
Jasper, the drummin’ boy by Margaret Taylor-Burroughs (1947)
47th Street: Poems by Frank Marshall Davis (1948)
Annie Allen by Gwendolyn Brooks (1949)

Unrelated to the Chicago Black Renaissance:

Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes (1930)
The Second Twenty Years at Hull House by Jane Addams (1930)
Roadside Meetings by Hamlin Garland (1930)
Not on the Screen by Henry Blake Fuller (1930)
My Thirty Years’ War by Margaret C. Anderson (1930)
Homecoming by Floyd Dell (1930)
China by Eunice Tietjens (1930)
Westward Passage by Margaret Ayer Barnes (1931)
Companions on the Trail by Hamlin Garland (1931)
Tragic America by Theodore Dreiser (1931)
Dawn by Theodore Dreiser (1931)
Young Lonigan by James T. Farrell (1932)
The Excellent Becomes the Permanent by Jane Addams (1932)
My Friendly Contemporaries by Hamlin Garland (1932)
Mary Lincoln: Wife and Widow by Carl Sandburg (1932)
Within This Present by Margaret Ayer Barnes (1933)
Afternoon Neighbors by Hamlin Garland (1934)
The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan by James T. Farrell (1934)
Judgment Day by James T. Farrell (1935)
Iowa, O Iowa by Hamlin Garland (1935)
Joys of the Trail by Hamlin Garland (1935)
My Friend Julia Lathrop by Jane Addams (1935)
Somebody in Boots by Nelson Algren (1935)
Edna, His Wife by Margaret Ayer Barnes (1935)
Forty Years of Psychic Research by Hamlin Garland (1936)
A Poet’s Life – Seventy Years in a Changing World by Harriet Monroe (1938)
The World at My Shoulder by Eunice Tietjens (1938)
Wisdom’s Gate by Margaret Ayer Barnes (1938)
Abraham Lincoln: The War Years by Carl Sandburg (1939)
The Mystery of the Buried Crosses by Hamlin Garland (1939)
America Is Worth Saving by Theodore Dreiser (1941)
Never Come Morning by Nelson Algren (1942)
Norma Ashe by Susan Glaspell (1942)
The Total Stranger by Theodore Dreiser (1944)
Dangling Man by Saul Bellow (1944)
The Bulwark by Theodore Dreiser (1946)
Poems of the Midwest by Carl Sandburg (1946)
The Stoic by Theodore Dreiser (1947)
The Victim by Saul Bellow (1947)
The Neon Wilderness by Nelson Algren (1947)
The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren (1949)

The Postwar Period (1950s-1960s)

Chicago: City on the Make by Nelson Algren (1951)
We Fished All Night by Willard Motley (1951)
Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks (1953)
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow (1953), National Book Award
Africa: Land of My Fathers by Era Bell Thompson (1954)
Bronzeville Boys and Girls by Gwendolyn Brooks (1956)
A Walk on the Wild Side by Nelson Algren (1956)
Seize the Day by Saul Bellow (1956)
Celebrating Negro History and Brotherhood: A Folio of Prints by Chicago Artists by Margaret Taylor-Burroughs (1956)
Let No Man Write My Epitaph by Willard Motley (1958)
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (1959)
Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow (1959)
The Bean Eaters by Gwendolyn Brooks (1960)
Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America, 1619–1962 by Lerone Bennett Jr. (1962)
Nelson Algren’s Own Book of Lonesome Monsters by Nelson Algren (1962)
Selected Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks (1963)
Who Lost an American? by Nelson Algren (1963)
Herzog by Saul Bellow (1964), National Book Award
Conversations with Nelson Algren by Nelson Algren (1964)
What Manner of Man: A Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Lerone Bennett Jr. (1964)
Notes from a Sea Diary: Hemingway All the Way by Nelson Algren (1965)
Confrontation: Black and White by Lerone Bennett Jr. (1965)
Many Thousand Gone: An American Fable by Ronald Fair (1965)
Whip me whop me pudding, and other stories of Riley Rabbit and his fabulous friends by Margaret Taylor-Burroughs (1966)
Let Noon Be Fair by Willard Motley (1966)
Hog Butcher by Ronald Fair (1966)
Black Power U.S.A.: The Human Side of Reconstruction 1867–1877 by Lerone Bennett Jr. (1967)
In the Mecca by Gwendolyn Brooks (1968)
What shall I tell my children who are Black? by Margaret Taylor-Burroughs (1968)
For Illinois 1968: A Sesquicentennial Poem by Gwendolyn Brooks (1968)
Pioneers In Protest: Black Power U.S.A. by Lerone Bennett Jr. (1968)
Mosby’s Memoirs and Other Stories by Saul Bellow (1968)
Did you feed my cow? Street games, chants, and rhymes by Margaret Taylor-Burroughs (1969)
Riot by Gwendolyn Brooks (1969)

The Sears Tower Era (1970s-2000s)

Mr. Sammler’s Planet by Saul Bellow (1970), National Book Award
Africa, my Africa by Margaret Taylor-Burroughs (1970)
Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells by Ida B. Wells (1970)
Family Pictures by Gwendolyn Brooks (1970)
World of Nothing: Two Novellas by Ronald Fair (1970)
Aloneness by Gwendolyn Brooks (1971)
One Life, Many Loves by Fanny Butcher (1971)
We Can’t Breathe by Ronald Fair (1972)
Report from Part One by Gwendolyn Brooks (1972)
The Challenge of Blackness by Lerone Bennett Jr. (1972)
October Journey by Margaret Walker (1973)
The Last Carousel by Nelson Algren (1973)
Notes on Life by Theodore Dreiser (1974)
The Shaping of Black America by Lerone Bennett Jr. (1975)
Excerpts by Ronald Fair (1975)
What shall I tell my children?: An addenda by Margaret Taylor-Burroughs (1975)
The Tiger Who Wore White Gloves by Gwendolyn Brooks (1975)
Beckonings by Gwendolyn Brooks (1975)
Humboldt’s Gift by Saul Bellow (1975), Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Rufus by Ronald Fair (1977)
Wade in the Water: Great Moments in Black History by Lerone Bennett Jr. (1979)
To Disembark by Gwendolyn Brooks (1981)
The Dean’s December by Saul Bellow (1982)
The Devil’s Stocking by Nelson Algren (1983)
Mayor Harold Washington; and, Chicago, the I Will City by Gwendolyn Brooks (1983)
Him with His Foot in His Mouth and Other Stories by Saul Bellow (1984)
Women Are Not Roses by Ana Castillo (1984)
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (1984)
The Family Linocut by Margaret Taylor-Burroughs (1986)
The Near-Johannesburg Boy, and Other Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks (1987)
More Die of Heartbreak by Saul Bellow (1987)
My Wicked Wicked Ways by Sandra Cisneros (1987)
Winnie by Gwendolyn Brooks (1988)
This Is My Century: New and Collected Poems by Margaret Walker (1989)
A Theft by Saul Bellow (1989)
The Bellarosa Connection by Saul Bellow (1989)
His name was Du Sable and he was the first by Margaret Taylor-Burroughs (1990)
Children Coming Home by Gwendolyn Brooks (1991)
Something to Remember Me By: Three Tales by Saul Bellow (1991)
America Eats by Nelson Algren (1992)
He Swung and He Missed by Nelson Algren (1993)
Africa name book by Margaret Taylor-Burroughs (1994)
The Texas Stories of Nelson Algren by Nelson Algren (1994)
Report from Part Two by Gwendolyn Brooks (1996)
Nonconformity by Nelson Algren (1996)
The Actual by Saul Bellow (1997)
The tallest tree in the forest by Margaret Taylor-Burroughs (1998)
Jubilee by Margaret Walker (1999)
Ravelstein by Saul Bellow (2000)
Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream by Lerone Bennett Jr. (2000)
Collected Stories by Saul Bellow (2001)
In Montgomery, and Other Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks (2003)
Humanist and glad to be by Margaret Taylor-Burroughs (2003)
My first husband & his four wives (me, being the first) by Margaret Taylor-Burroughs (2003)
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (2003)
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger (2009)

The Fourth Chicago Renaissance (2010s-2020s)

Raven Girl by Audrey Niffenegger (2013)
Wild Hundreds by Nate Marshall (2015)
The Performance of Becoming Human by Daniel Borzutzky (2016)
Lessons on Expulsion by Erika L. Sánchez (2017)
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez (2017)
Electric Arches by Eve L. Ewing (2017)
The University of Hip-Hop by Mayda Del Valle (2017)
If They Come for Us by Fatimah Asghar (2018)
Lake Michigan by Daniel Borzutzky (2018)
Citizen Illegal by José Olivarez (2018)
1919 by Eve L. Ewing (2019)