Claude McKay

Claude McKay published across four decades and three continents, in two languages, and a substantial part of his work reached print only after his death. The list below covers the book-length primary bibliography: original books, works first published in translation, posthumously recovered manuscripts, correspondence, and the principal collected editions. It does not treat every modern reprint or standalone printing of an individual poem as a separate work.

Original and authorial works

• Songs of Jamaica (1912) — Poetry collection. First edition: Kingston, Jamaica: A. W. Gardner & Co., 1912. His first published book, written largely in Jamaican dialect.
• Constab Ballads (1912) — Poetry collection. First edition: London: Watts & Co., 1912. Poems drawing on his brief service in Jamaica's constabulary.
• Spring in New Hampshire and Other Poems (1920) — Poetry collection. First edition: London: Grant Richards, 1920. Several poems were later revised or absorbed into Harlem Shadows.
• Harlem Shadows: The Poems of Claude McKay (1922) — Poetry collection. First edition: New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922. Contains most of the poems he is known for, among them 'If We Must Die', 'America', 'The Harlem Dancer', 'The Tropics in New York' and 'To One Coming North'.
• Negry v Amerike / The Negroes in America (1923) — Political and social essays. First published in Russian: Moscow and Petrograd: Gosizdat, 1923. The English manuscript did not survive in publishable form; the work returned to English through a translation of the Russian, edited by Alan L. McLeod and translated by Robert J. Winter (Kennikat Press, 1979). Some older references date the Russian edition to 1924; the stronger catalogue evidence supports 1923.
• Sudom lincha / Trial by Lynching: Stories About Negro Life in North America (1925) — Short-story collection. First published in Russian: Moscow: Ogonek, 1925. The first English edition was reconstructed by translating the Russian back into English, translated by Robert Winter and edited by Alan L. McLeod (University of Mysore, 1977).
• Home to Harlem (1928) — Novel. First edition: New York: Harper & Brothers, 1928. His first published novel, and the first novel by a Black American writer to become a bestseller.
• Banjo: A Story Without a Plot (1929) — Novel. First edition: New York: Harper & Brothers, 1929. Set among Black sailors, labourers, musicians and migrants in Marseille, and the most important of his books for France.
• Gingertown (1932) — Short-story collection. First edition: New York: Harper & Brothers, 1932. Stories set across Jamaica, Harlem, Europe and North Africa.
• Banana Bottom (1933) — Novel. First edition: New York: Harper & Brothers, 1933. A Jamaica-set novel centred on Bita Plant and the conflict between colonial expectation and Jamaican life.
• A Long Way from Home (1937) — Autobiography. First edition: New York: Lee Furman, Inc., 1937. Covers his travels and his encounters with political and literary circles in the United States, London, Moscow, Berlin, Paris and Marseille.
• Harlem: Negro Metropolis (1940) — Social history and essays. First edition: New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1940. A study of Harlem's institutions, politics, religious organisations, businesses and daily life.
• My Green Hills of Jamaica and Five Jamaican Short Stories (1979) — Autobiographical prose and short stories, edited by Mervyn Morris. First edition: Kingston: Heinemann Educational Books Caribbean, 1979. Combines his unfinished Jamaican autobiography with five stories, and is a distinct posthumous work rather than another edition of A Long Way from Home.
• Harlem Glory: A Fragment of Aframerican Life (1990) — Unfinished novel, with a preface by Carl Cowl. First edition: Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 1990. Written in the 1930s and unpublished in his lifetime. Some retail records show 1988; the publisher and archival records support 1990.
• Amiable with Big Teeth: A Novel of the Love Affair Between the Communists and the Poor Black Sheep of Harlem (2017) — Novel, edited by Jean-Christophe Cloutier and Brent Hayes Edwards. First edition: New York: Penguin Classics, 2017. Written around 1941; the lost manuscript was authenticated after its rediscovery in 2009.
• Romance in Marseille (2020) — Novel, edited by Gary Edward Holcomb and William J. Maxwell. First completed publication: New York: Penguin Classics, 2020. Written in the late 1920s and early 1930s. A 2001 University of Exeter Press edition appears in some catalogue records but the evidence indicates it never reached ordinary publication.
• Letters in Exile: Transnational Journeys of a Harlem Renaissance Writer (2025) — Correspondence, edited by Brooks E. Hefner and Gary Edward Holcomb. First edition: New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025. A scholarly collection of previously unpublished letters spanning roughly two decades.

Principal selected and collected editions. These are significant publications, but they gather work published earlier rather than constituting new writing.

• Selected Poems of Claude McKay (1953) — Selected poetry. New York: Bookman Associates, with an introduction by John Dewey and a biographical note by Max Eastman. Published shortly after his death and important in keeping the poetry in print.
• The Dialect Poetry of Claude McKay (1972) — Poetry, facsimile reissue. Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries Press, with a preface by Wayne F. Cooper. A two-volume republication of Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads. The title is Dialect, not Dialectic.
• The Passion of Claude McKay: Selected Poetry and Prose, 1912–1948 (1973) — Selected poetry and prose, edited by Wayne F. Cooper. New York: Schocken Books.
• Complete Poems (2004) — Complete poetry, edited by William J. Maxwell. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. The definitive scholarly collection, with more than 300 poems including nearly 100 not previously published. Some bibliographies give 2008, the date of a later paperback.
• The Collected Articles of Claude McKay (2022) — Article anthology. Read & Co. Books. A short modern commercial collection of roughly fifty pages rather than a comprehensive scholarly edition; the title overstates its completeness.

Chronological List

• 1912 — Songs of Jamaica — Poetry
• 1912 — Constab Ballads — Poetry
• 1920 — Spring in New Hampshire and Other Poems — Poetry
• 1922 — Harlem Shadows — Poetry
• 1923 — Negry v Amerike / The Negroes in America — Essays and social criticism
• 1925 — Sudom lincha / Trial by Lynching — Short stories
• 1928 — Home to Harlem — Novel
• 1929 — Banjo — Novel
• 1932 — Gingertown — Short stories
• 1933 — Banana Bottom — Novel
• 1937 — A Long Way from Home — Autobiography
• 1940 — Harlem: Negro Metropolis — Social history and essays
• 1953 — Selected Poems of Claude McKay — Selected poetry
• 1972 — The Dialect Poetry of Claude McKay — Collected poetry, reissue
• 1973 — The Passion of Claude McKay — Selected poetry and prose
• 1979 — My Green Hills of Jamaica and Five Jamaican Short Stories — Autobiography and stories
• 1990 — Harlem Glory — Unfinished novel
• 2004 — Complete Poems — Complete poetry
• 2017 — Amiable with Big Teeth — Novel
• 2020 — Romance in Marseille — Novel
• 2022 — The Collected Articles of Claude McKay — Article anthology
• 2025 — Letters in Exile — Correspondence