Encyclopedia of the Harlem Literary Renaissance

Encyclopedia of the Harlem Literary Renaissance is the latest publication in the Facts on File Literary Movements set. (The other four volumes cover gothic literature, science fiction writers, pulp fiction writers, and the Chicago Literary Renaissance). Author Brown is an associate professor of English with a specialty in African American Studies. Her introduction explains the phenomenon of the Harlem Renaissance and describes recent advances in scholarship, including greater access to primary writings and "Harlem Renaissance-related feminist recovery."

The volume has more than 800 alphabetically arranged entries, most including a short bibliography of further reading. The entries do not cover writers and their works exclusively. Many of the most interesting entries are for educational institutions, such as Fisk University in Nashville, and African American newspapers and magazines, such as The Crisis, 0 edited by W. E. B. DuBois. Brown also includes places (Chicago, Cotton Club, Greenwich Village); organizations and institutions (African Black Brotherhood, New York Public Library, Young Men's Christian Association); events (First World War, Great Depression, Scottsboro trial); and various other topics related to the movement (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.; Julius Rosenwald Fellowship; Howard University Players). Length ranges from a sentence or two to five for major figures such as DuBois and Jessie Redmon Fauset. The volume is well researched, drawing on letters, diaries, and collected works as well as secondary sources, such as biographies and literary criticism.

Following the introduction is a map of Harlem with places of interest noted and numbered. Other features include a selected bibliography of works by leading Harlem Renaissance figures, a chronology, and a bibliography of secondary sources. Although there is overlap with other sources, such as Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, published by Facts On File in 2003, this is a worthwhile purchase for public, high-school, and undergraduate collections.