Mint Editions (Black Narratives) – serie

A celebration of music from beginning to end, The Weary Blues is the debut poetry collection by the foremost Harlem Renaissance poet, Langston Hughes.

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, / Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, / I heard a Negro play. / Down on Lenox Avenue the other night / By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light / He did a lazy sway. . .

With these first lines, Hughes invites the reader into an experimental playground that tells the story of a Black man's life in America. Featuring poems such as, "Dream Variations," "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," and "Our Land," Hughes weaves in and out of verse, highlighting the lows of struggle in the face of segregation and racism, but also the highs of creation from the time when, "the Negroes were in vogue."

Now considered to be an American classic, The Weary Blues embodies the feel of the rhythm, improvisation, and soul of Black classical music, pioneered the genre of "jazz poetry," and left an irreplaceable mark in the African-American literary canon.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

The brainchild of Daniel Alexander Payne Murray, Banneker: The Afro-American Astronomer was first conceived after Murray discovered what he found to be a beautifully written letter to Thomas Jefferson by a then unknown writer of color. Aided in his research by Will A. Allen, the pair discovered the man to be one Benjamin Banneker, a mathematician and astronomer.

An extraordinary mind in a time where most people of African descent in the United States were denied the right to a formal education and—having no such access to the opportunity—Banneker was for the most part self-taught. He was the author of several commercially successful almanacs, aided in the survey of Washington D.C., and frequently corresponded with Thomas Jefferson, to plead for the justice and freedom of enslaved Africans within the U.S.

Professionally typeset with a beautifully designed cover, this edition of Banneker: The Afro-American Astronomer is an essential piece of Black history reimagined for a modern audience.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

“...she's intelligent enough in a purely feminine way. Eighteenth-century France would have been a marvellous setting for her, or the old South if she hadn't made the mistake of being born a Negro." Mirroring Wallace Thurman’s The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life, Passing (1929) is the phenomenal sophomore novel of Nella Larsen.

On an ordinary day, Irene Redfield receives an unexpected letter from her old friend, Clare Kendry. Clare, having long ago crossed the color line, writes to Irene about the loneliness she feels in her new white life and asks to see her again. Conflicted about the request, yet curious all the same, Irene accepts the invitation and the two go out to lunch. The encounter, while innocent in its intent, forces Clare to face the reality of her decision to pass and leaves Irene to question the Black life she chose to lead.

Professionally typeset with a beautifully designed cover, this edition of Passing is an outstanding reimagining of a Harlem Renaissance staple for the modern reader.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Revisit the debut novel of one of the “New Negroes” of the Harlem Renaissance filled with Niggerati sensibilities.

Disgruntled by the treatment of Black soldiers in the military, Jake Brown heads to Harlem—the Mecca of Black creativity—to rebuild his life anew. Upon arriving, he discovers that Harlem isn’t exactly the paradise of racial uplift and unity that one might read about in books; but then again, it’s a far cry from the volatile streets of London and the isolation faced abroad. Meeting new faces and taking up odd jobs, Jake sets out on a journey to discover who he is as a Black man in the world and where he can truly belong.Home to Harlem (1928) is the bestselling, award-winning novel of Jamaican-American poet, Claude McKay that explores the spirit of the uprooted Black vagabond within Harlem’s legendary nightlife.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Hailed by Arnold Rampersad as “[Hughes’] most brilliant book of poems,” Fine Clothes to the Jew is the stunning sophomore collection of poetry that—in conjunction with The Weary Blues—solidified Langston Hughes as a literary powerhouse.

Originally published in 1927, Fine Clothes to the Jew is both a continuation and extension of his previous volume of verse; continuing to utilize the rhythm and function of Black classical music—the blues, as it were—to capture a scene of Black life in America, only this time with a less pristine picture.

Turning his focus from the tender and nostalgic depiction of the culture, Hughes opts to reveal the raw and unfiltered realities of Harlem; the depression, the poverty, and the struggle of those outside the purview of the Talented Tenth; creating what is arguably, one of the most significant collections of poetry ever published and one of the most-overlooked pieces of work in African-American literary history.

Featuring such poems as, “Po’ Boy Blues,” “Death of Do Dirty,” “Song For a Dark Girl,” and “Lament Over Love,” Fine Clothes to the Jew is a must-read book for fans of Langston Hughes and a forgotten classic of the Harlem Renaissance.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

“Breezes blowin’ middlin’ brisk, / Snowflakes thro’ the air a-whisk, / Fallin’ kind o’ soft an’ light, /Not enough to make things white, / But jest sorter siftin’ down / So ’s to cover up the brown /Of the dark world’s rugged ways / ’N’ make things look like holidays. /Not smoothed over, but jest specked, / Sorter strainin’ fur effect, / An’ not quite a-gittin’ through / What it started in to do. / Mercy sakes! It does seem queer / Christmas day is ’most nigh here. / Somehow it don’t seem to me /Christmas like it used to be,— / Christmas with its ice an’ snow, / Christmas of the long ago.”

Once praised by Frederick Douglass as “the most promising young colored man in America,” Paul Laurence Dunbar was an exceptionally gifted poet who helped lay the foundation of African American literature and was the first African American poet to achieve major success across the color line. Published posthumously nearly ten years after his untimely death, Speakin’ O’ Christmas and Other Christmas Poems, collects over a dozen of his most festive, holiday-themed verses into a single volume, including, “Chrismus is A-Comin’,” “Soliloquy of a Turkey,” “Christmas in the Heart,” and the titular, “Speakin’ O’ Christmas.”

Celebrating both the spirit of the holiday season and the talent of the “Negro dialect” poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Speakin’ O’ Christmas and Other Poems is a delightful collection of poetry for readers of all ages.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Revisit the debut novel of one of the “New Negroes” of the Harlem Renaissance filled with Niggerati sensibilities.

Disgruntled by the treatment of Black soldiers in the military, Jake Brown heads to Harlem—the Mecca of Black creativity—to rebuild his life anew. Upon arriving, he discovers that Harlem isn’t exactly the paradise of racial uplift and unity that one might read about in books; but then again, it’s a far cry from the volatile streets of London and the isolation faced abroad. Meeting new faces and taking up odd jobs, Jake sets out on a journey to discover who he is as a Black man in the world and where he can truly belong.Home to Harlem (1928) is the bestselling, award-winning novel of Jamaican-American poet, Claude McKay that explores the spirit of the uprooted Black vagabond within Harlem’s legendary nightlife.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.