Spanning more than fifty years, the work of William Stanley Braithwaite partially represents both the tragedy and the ambiguity of having been produced by an Afro-American writer in a pluralistic culture that does not always respect its own diversity. Yet, in spite of those forces which he could not control, Braithwaite became an important figure in American letters as he occupied a position for the advocacy of American poetry and criticism that has had few equals; however, his service in the cause of poetry in the United States has not been fully assessed. Given his importance in American literary circles, it is curious that so little has been written about him. Unfortunately, a great deal of his work is buried in little-read magazines and newspapers; but the introductions to his yearly anthologies, the essays in The Poetic Year for 1916: A Critical Anthology (1917), his biography of the Brontes, as...