This collection of more than forty years of correspondence [Arna Bontemps—Langston Hughes Letters (1925–1967)] is a delight….

[There] is a wealth of observation, careerist plotting and warm personal exchange between two friends trying to make their way in the American literary scene (and succeeding). We learn that Hughes was fond of baseball, Bontemps hated the cold, and both men were vain about their weight. The fact that these sons-of-the-middle-class-turned-artists were black may have gotten the letters published; the fact that they both wrote so well is what makes them worth reading.

Don David Guttenplan, "Book Notes: 'Arna Bontemps—Langston Hughes Letters (1925–1967)'," in The Nation (copyright 1979 The Nation Associates, Inc.), Vol. 229, No. 14, November 3, 1979, p. 441.∗