Fire!! Devoted to Young Negro Artists

LANGSTON HUGHES | ZORA NEALE HURSTON | WALLACE THURMAN | AARON DOUGLAS cover design | BRUCE NEWMAN | GWENDOLYN BENNETT | JOHN P. DAVIS | RICHARD BRUCE NUGENT | THOMAS H. WIRTH

  • English, African American Language

  • Harlem Renaissance, 20th century Black arts publications

  • Young Adult +

A 1982 reproduction of Fire!! which was originally published during the Harlem Renaissance in 1926 by Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, Aaron Douglas (who designed the covers), Bruce Newman, Gwendolyn Bennett, and John P. Davis.

From the New York Public Library's website, "Conceived in response to the desire of younger Black artists for a periodical concerned solely with the arts…the first issue included among its contributors the best and the brightest of "younger negro artists," many of whom would become legendary figures in the annals of the Harlem Renaissance. Unfortunately, the quarterly received mixed reviews; younger artists around the country were impressed by its boldness, but the Black press and the Black middle class thoroughly panned it. (For the first issue, Thurman's editorial comment was titled "Fire Burns.")

Because of the financial difficulties in bringing Vol. 1, No. 1 to press, it was the only issue ever published."; The issue includes an excerpt from Richard Bruce Nugent's novel, "Smoke, Lilies and Jade," which "has the distinction of being the first published work written from an explicitly homosexual perspective by a black author"--publisher's website. The reproduction includes an insert featuring introductory essays by Richard Bruce Nugent and Thomas H. Wirth.