1937: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Author/Editor: Zora Neale Hurston

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Depicting the life of a black woman named Janie Crawford, Their Eyes Were Watching God describes how the culture and societal pressures in the rural South influenced Janie’s relationships with her three different husbands and how her experiences informed the person she became. Shocking in its starkness, this work initially received mixed reviews; notably it was panned by Hurston’s Harlem Renaissance contemporaries for being essentially too real and doing nothing to promote the African-American experience.

The popularity of this book was revitalized in the 1970s with feminist reinterpretations as well as its inclusion in African-American studies. It has also been transformed into a popular television adaptation produced by Oprah Winfrey.

1938: The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud

Author/Editor: Sigmund Freud & Dr. A. A. Brill

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Freud is considered the founder of psychoanalysis and lived from  1856 – 1939.   Dr. A. A. Brill was a psychiatrist and was the first to translate into English most of the major works of Freud and thus brought his writings to a new community of American psychologists and psychiatrists.  Included in this volume are the first translations of Psychopathology of Everyday Life, The Interpretation of Dreams, Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex, Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious, Totem and Taboo and The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement.  Brill’s translations are the first and some scholars prefer later translations that are seen as more vivid.

Detailed information about Freud can be found using Biography Resource Center.

In addition, the following resources are also useful:

• Freud clip from BBC interview on You Tube
• Freud Museum Vienna
• Freud Museum London
• Sigmund Freud Archives

1939: Mein Kampf

Author/Editor: Adolf Hitler

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It’s impossible to think of the 20^th century without acknowledging the conflict and horrors associated with this book.

Indeed, that is much the sentiment of Ludwig Lore, who wrote the preface of the Stackpole edition:

I cannot conceive of any book of which I more positively disapprove, but I consider it vitally important for every intelligent American to acquaint himself at first hand with the theories on which the National Socialist state is founded.

Mein Kampf, the infamous work by Adolf Hitler, is one of the most widely-read books in history. Although the text in the original German was first published in 1929, this “unauthorized” English translation by Stackpole and Sons was published in 1939 with the tagline “This Edition Pays No Royalty to Adolf Hitler”. This edition was only available for three months because of copyright issues, but it sold over 12,000 copies in that time period.

The impetus to publish this translation is stated on the book jacket: “With the appearance of this volume, Hitler’s censorship ends, and the work which Dorothy Thompson calls “Hitler’s blueprint of world conquest” is at last available to readers everywhere.”

1940: Native Son

Author/Editor: Richard Wright

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This landmark work was the first novel written by an African American to be a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. It chronicles the life of Bigger Thomas, a black youth from the slums of Chicago, who accidently murders a white women and is condemned to death. In the process of telling Bigger’s story, Wright emphasizes the impact of racial injustice on his character’s development. Wright’s intention was to write a book that was “so hard and deep” that the reader “would have to face it without the consolation of tears.”

1941: The Last Tycoon

Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald

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While Fitzgerald is perhaps best known for The Great Gatsby, which so many of us have read in AP English, The Last Tycoon was his final, unfinished ambitious book, and we selected it for 1941 because of its eerie echo with Fitgerald’s own end.

The Last Tycoon follows Monroe Stahr, a producer at the top of Hollywood’s golden age of the 30s. Stahr’s decline at the hands of ‘new Hollywood’, a more businesslike, investment-style environment is chronicled, as well as his young death. At 44, just after writing the first part of Chapter 6, Fitzgerald died of a heart attack. His notes and the completed portion of the book were published eventually. The current critical edition was released in 1993.

1942: The Stranger

Author/Editor: Albert Camus, Translated by Stuart Gilbert

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One of France’s most famous twentieth century writers, Albert Camus explores alienation in modern life through an existentialist antihero so completely devoid of human conventional behavior that he commits a senseless murder without reason or remorse. While in prison, he  “opens his heart to the benign indifference of the universe.”

1943: Le Petit Prince

Author/Editor: Antoine De Saint-Exupery

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This French fairy tale has been widely translated and is popular with children and adults alike. It tells the story of an aviator whose plane crashes on a small planet. He meets the little prince who reveals the secret of human wisdom:  “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

1944: Strange Fruit

Author: Lillian Eugenia Smith

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A tale of an interracial love affair set in the rural South, Strange Fruit touches on several controversial topics, including race relations, abortion, sexuality, and religious fundamentalism. For these reasons, the book was banned in the city of Boston and the U.S. Post Office banned it from being shipped across state lines for a short time. Principally, this work challenged the status quo in numerous ways and it was popular enough to have been rewritten as a stage play.

Lillian Smith was one of the first white Southerners to speak out against racial prejudice and was actively protesting against segregation a full decade before the U.S. government acted on the issue with Brown v. Board of Education.

1945: Stuart Little

Author/Editor: E.B. White, pictures by Garth Williams

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This classic in children’s literature was the first children’s book written by award winning author E. B. White and illustrated by award winning illustrator Garth Williams.  The story tells of the adventures of Stuart, a mouse born into the Little family.  The story takes place in New York City, and follows Stuart as he sets out to find his friend, Margalo, a beautiful little bird who Stuart has befriended.

Over the years Stuart Little has been made into movies and television programs, and remains a staple on reading lists for kids.  It’s an adventure story that is interwoven with themes of love and acceptance for those that may be different than ourselves.  And is truly about the triumph of the little guy.

1946: Plays of Our Time

Author/Editor: Bennet Cerf

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Published in 1946, this book is described as anthology of the best plays produced on Broadway in the last two decades.  Included are such classics as:  The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O’Neill, A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennesse Williams and Death of A Salesman by Author Miller.

The editor Bennett Cerf was a well know television personality and supporter of the arts.  During his lifetime (1898-1971) he edited many books and also hosted a radio show, “Books Are Bullets,” on which he interviewed authors of war books.  He was a permanent panelist on the television quiz show “What’s My Line?,” which ran to summer 1967 and earned him national public recognition. His personal papers are are in the library at Columbia University in New York City.