[Hurst, a popular novelist in the 1920s and 1930s, employed Hurston as a secretary-companion during Hurston's first years in New York City.]

Here in ["Jonah's Gourd Vine"] there springs, with validity and vitality a fresh note which, to this commentator, is unique.

Here is negro folk-lore interpreted at its authentic best in fiction form of a high order.

A brilliantly facile spade has turned over rich new earth. Worms lift up, the hottish smells of soil rise, negro toes dredge into that soil, smells of racial fecundity are about.

As a matter of fact, not even excepting Langston Hughes, it is doubtful if there is any literary precedent for the particular type of accomplishment that characterizes "Jonah's Gourd Vine."

Miss Hurston has penetrated into the complicated lore and mythology of her people with an authority and an unselfconsciousness that has not its equal in similar annals. Even through...