Book excerpt: Between 1925 and 1967, Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps exchanged about 2,300 letters. Editor Charles H. Nichols has selected about 500 of the most interesting and significant within this book. These letters reveal the personalities of the writers, record significant literary activity or growth, present literary criticism, show the depth of the writers' concept of their responsibilities to their readers, and record significant developments in race relations in the United States and abroad.