The weary blues

Transcriber’s Notes
Corrected text is marked with a dotted underline. A list of corrections can be found at the end of this eBook.
by
LANGSTON HUGHES
WITH AN INTRODUCTON BY CARL VAN VECHTEN
NEW YORK ALFRED · A · KNOPF 1926
COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC · SET UP, ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC., BINGHAMTON, N. Y. · ESPARTO PAPER MANUFACTURED IN SCOTLAND AND FURNISHED BY W. F. ETHERINGTON & CO., NEW YORK · BOUND BY THE H. WOLFF ESTATE, NEW YORK.
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO MY MOTHER
I wish to thank the editors of The Crisis , Opportunity , Survey Graphic , Vanity Fair , The World Tomorrow and The Amsterdam News for having first published some of the poems in this book.
At the moment I cannot recall the name of any other person whatever who, at the age of twenty-three, has enjoyed so picturesque and rambling an existence as Langston Hughes. Indeed, a complete account of his disorderly and delightfully fantastic career would make a fascinating picaresque romance which I hope this young Negro will write before so much more befalls him that he may find it difficult to capture all the salient episodes within the limits of a single volume.
Born on February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri, he had lived, before his twelfth year, in the City of Mexico, Topeka, Kansas, Colorado Springs, Charlestown, Indiana, Kansas City, and Buffalo. He attended Central High School, from which he graduated, at Cleveland, Ohio, while in the summer, there and in Chicago, he worked as delivery- and dummy-boy in hat-stores. In his senior year he was elected class poet and editor of the Year Book.