Byrd, Rudolph P., Jean Toomer's Years with Gurdjieff: Portrait, University of Georgia Press, 1990.

A biographical study of Toomer, following his life from the time he first heard Georges Gurdjieff lecture inNew York City in 1924.

Kerman, Cynthia Earl, and Richard Eldridge, The Lives of Jean Toomer, Louisiana State University Press, 1987. This biography is useful in offering documented corrections to earlier misconceptions about Toomer's mysterious life.

Lewis, David Levering, When Harlem Was in Vogue, Oxford University Press, 1979.

This book is very readable, and tells the full story of the Harlem Renaissance, including literary and social perspectives.

Woodson, John, To Make a New Race: Gurdjieff, Toomer, and the Harlem Renaissance, University of Mississippi Press, 1999.

Woodson does a thorough, credible job of showing the connections between the ideologies of Gurdjieff, the religious leader, and his follower, Toomer. This book is required reading for understanding Toomer's career after Cane.