Negro: Anthology made by Nancy Cunard: 1931-1933

Published in London by Wishart & Co. in 1934, Negro: Anthology is a monumental 856-page volume edited by Nancy Cunard, compiling essays, poetry, history, art, sociology, and political writings from over 150 international contributors.

The anthology features major Harlem Renaissance figures such as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, W. E. B. Du Bois, Arthur Schomburg, and Countee Cullen, alongside voices from the Caribbean, Africa, Europe, and beyond. Boldly bound in black cloth with red stamped titling and lavishly illustrated, the book documents the breadth of Black achievement, cultural identity, and political struggle across the diaspora during a period of global crisis.

Negro: Anthology is one of the most ambitious and wide-ranging compilations of Black life and thought from the early twentieth century, breaking barriers as both a literary and political document. Nancy Cunard, a British heiress turned radical, envisioned the anthology as a weapon against racism, imperialism, and fascism.

The work’s intellectual rigor, scope, and commitment to the Black experience earned it a reputation as a “secular Bible of African culture” and established a model for later anthologies of global Black literature. Many copies were lost when a warehouse holding unsold stock was bombed during the Blitz, enhancing the rarity and mystique of the first edition.