New York: Dial Press, 1971. dj. Hardcover first edition - A memoir by one of the most influential, controversial, and complex Black politicians of the first half of the 20th century, one which details his childhood in Harlem, his education at an all-white college, his years spent preaching the gospel, and his rise to political fame, as a flamboyant black congressman, a civil-rights activist who was also notorious for his private life. "As the congressman from Harlem, he denounced racist southern colleagues and introduced the 'Powell Amendment' to deny federal funds to projects or organizations that practiced discrimination. In 1960, he became chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, then the strongest position ever held by a black in the US government - and he became a thorn in the side of ally and foe alike. He was a maverick seldom bound by party, duty, or conventional morality, although in this book, he barely mentions the charges of corruption that led to his exclusion from Congress. Nor does he discuss his opposition to Bayard Rustin, as depicted in the recent film. Illustrated with photographs. Index. x, 260 pp. Dust jacket by Wendell Minor.

New York: Schirmer Books / Macmillan, (1992) dj. Hardcover first edition - A book which chronicles the life and Prohibition-era times of this legendary songwriter and whose musicals pioneered a distinctive African-American musical theater on Broadway, but who has been almost forgotten. "The 1920s were thrilling years for Broadway and Tin Pan Alley. Uptown in Harlem, talented musicians and composers were working to shed the image of minstrelsy and to find mainstream success within the structures of that particularly African American music known as jazz. The subject of this biography was lyricist for hundreds of songs, including 'Honeysuckle Rose' and 'Ain't Misbehavin'.' His contemporaries formed a Who''s Who of jazz greats, from Louis Armstrong to Razaf's most noted collaborator, Thomas 'Fats' Waller. Razaf brought a sensitivity and sophistication to his lyrics that ensure the timelessness of his best work. The poignant 'Black and Blue,' dealing with the plight of being Black in a white world, may be the first racial protest song."" (Library Journal) Illustrated with photographs. Notes, songs, discography, index. xvii, 444 pp. ISBN: 0-028723953.

New York: Morrow, (1966) dj. Hardcover first edition - Author's highly praised first book, a novel set in Harlem in the 1960s - the story of King Henry, 16 years old, and he knows a lot - he knows who sells what - drugs, sex, guns and bullets. And most of all, he knows hopelessness and the one way out of it.
While some authors (among them Ishmael Reed) have criticized Stevens for being a white man writing about black lives, his life and attitudes were complex - Stevens described the language in this book as Òthe language of the people who live it. So that the reader may become a participant and not just a spectator. It is a language of pain, or despair and neglect - yes, and of hope as well.Ó Stevens grew up in largely black neighborhoods, of HellÕs Kitchen and then Harlem, and he wrote about what he knew. Stephen KIng commented that Stevens produced "three of the finest novels ever written about the dark side of the American Dream." 236 pp.

New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, (1966) dj. Hardcover first edition - The author's second novel, a surreal look at 1960s New York as shown in the story of Lester Jefferson, "a rambunctiously outgoing and terminally callow variation on Wright's urban-loner persona. Lester is determined to capitalize on the transformative potential of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society with some bold transformations of his own. These begin with the vigorous application of something called Silky Smooth Hair Relaxer ('with the Built-in Sweat-proof Base'), thus bringing to life the eponymous 'wig': a lustrously silken hairdo that so boosts his self-esteem (I hadn't felt so good since discovering last year that I actually disliked watermelon) that he believes nothing less than the American Dream is within reach." (Gene Seymour) A book which anticipated the work of Fran Ross, Paul Beatty, Darius James, and Ishmael Reed (who calls this novel a landmark in African American fiction.) 179 pp. Dust jacket by Milton Glaser.