Biography of American Author Jean Toomer, 1894-1967

Biography of American Author Jean Toomer, 1894-1967

Edwin Mellen Press
2002
248 pages
ISBN 10:  0-7734-7088-3; ISBN 13:  978-0-7734-7088-0

John Chandler Griffin, Distinguished Professor Emeritus
University of South Carolina, Lancaster

This comprehensive biography of writer Jean Toomer, known as the Herald of the Harlem Renaissance, uses previously untapped sources, including lengthy meetings with Toomer’s widow and associates. It examines his ancestors and early life, the publication of Cane in 1923, and then the strange events of his later life, including his association with Waldo Frank and his wife Margery Naumberg, through whom he would come to be involved with Georges Gurdjieff, an Armenian mystic. It examines his marriages, his involvement with Quakerism, his declining health (and subsequent involvement with psychic healers such as Edgar Cayce and Ron Hubbard). The volume includes an interview with Marjorie Content Toomer, his widow, and a Jean Toomer bibliography.

Table of Contents

  • Foreword
  • 1. The Racial Enigma of Jean Toomer
  • 2. A Search for Identity
  • 3. A Literary Breakthrough
  • 4. Waldo Frank and the Publication of Cane
  • 5. Toomer Meets Margaret Naumberg and Georges Gurdjieff
  • 6. Toomer Becomes a Gurdjieffian
  • 7. From Rags to Riches
  • 8. A Life in Decline An Interview with Margery Content Toomer
  • A Jean Toomer Bibliography
  • Index
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