Cane ─ Authoritative Text, Contexts, Criticism

"Jean Toomer's Cane signaled a breakthrough in prose and poetical writing. It set a high standard for writers coming after him. I am delighted that Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Rudolph P. Byrd revised the edition, and I congratulate Norton for publishing it. This book should be on all readers' and writers' desks and in their minds."---Maya Angelou

"This is an outstanding critical edition that illuminates the complex life of Jean Toomer, the creation of Cane, his haunting, influential masterpiece, and modernism. Once again, we are indebted to Rudolph Byrd and Henry Louis Gates, Jt. for their superb scholarship."---Charles Johnson

"In this skillfully edited and comprehensive volume, Toomer's multivalent, elliptical modernism finds full expression. Recognizing the author's fascination with fragmentation and hybridity, this edition of Cane gives teacher and student more complete access, biographically and critically, to Toomer's mind and art than anything else of its kind available."---William L. Andrews, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

"Rudolph Byrd and Henry Louis Gates have given us the definitive critical edition of Jean Toomer's masterwork, Cane. Their introduction, a model of literary history, provides a thorough discussion of the author's biography as well as an in-depth discussion of the cultural and historical contexts that gave birth to the novel. As such, it introduces as not only to the text itself but also to the supporting documents gathered here. Autobiographical essays, correspondence, and an assortment of critical, literary, and scholarly essays all afford readers a wealth of material that furthers our understanding and appreciation of this text. With this volume, a literary gem has finally found the magnificent setting it deserves."---Farah Jasmine Griffin, Columbia University.

"The introduction is excellently researched and complements the included materials well. The selection of contemporary reviews and landmarks of later reception is outstanding."---Werner Sollors, Harvard University

"At last, a new Norton Critical Edition of Cane, and a vast improvement over what has been available. Professors Byrd and Gates's Introduction expertly situates the book in relation to the diverse strands of American modernism as well as Toomer's life and thought. With a generous, up-to-date, and well-chosen selection of ancillary readings, both primary and secondary, this edition of a modernist classic will be welcomed far and wide."---George Hutchinson, Indiana University

Cover Portrait: Jean Toomer (1925) by Winold Reiss, Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations. Reproduced by permission.