"The Gilded Six-Bits" (1933), one of Hurston's most popular and well-known stories. Set in Eatonville, it tells of the marriage of Missie May and Joe Banks, and how it is almost destroyed by the lure of wealth.

Dust Tracks on a Road (1942) is Zora Neale Hurston's autobiography. Its early chapters focus on Hurston's early life in Eatonville, Florida, an all-black township that resembles the setting of "Spunk." This telling of her life is as entertaining as it is unreliable—several important facts, including her age and her contributions, are distorted by a writer who was more interested in writing a commercial success than in revealing herself.

Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), today considered Hurston's masterpiece. The novel begins and ends in Eatonville, Florida, where Janie Crawford struggles to find contentment. After loving and losing three men, she discovers that the...