"One of the best known works of African American literature, The Souls of Black Folk contains a remarkable mix of generic forms, including history, memoir, philosophy, biography, and fiction, to examine the situation of African Americans in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century. This edition reproduces the first edition text of 1903 and includes an introduction that outlines Du Bois's careful construction of the book, and its seminal contribution to the development of the African American literary tradition. Detailed explanatory notes provide contextual information, and are especially informative on Du Bois's use of musical fragments from Negro spirituals as epigraphs to each chapter."