Now frequently anthologized, Zora Neale Hurston's short story "Sweat" was first published in Fire!!, a legendary literary magazine of the Harlem Renaissance, whose sole issue appeared in November 1926. In "Sweat" Hurston claimed the voice that animates her mature fiction, notably the 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God; the themes of marital conflict and the development of spiritual consciousness were introduced as well. "Sweat" exemplifies Hurston's lifelong concern with women's relation to language and the literary possibilities of the black vernacular.

This casebook for this story includes an introduction by the editor; a chronology of the author's life; the authoritative text of "Sweat"; and a second story, "The Gilded Six-Bits." Published in 1932, this second story was written after Hurston had spent years conducting fieldwork in the southern United States. The volume also includes Hurston's groundbreaking 1934 essay, "Characteristics of Negro Expressionism," and excerpts from her autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road. An article by folklorist Roger Abrahams, along with selected blues and spirituals, provide additional cultural contexts for the story. Critical commentary comes from Alice Walker, who led the recovery of Hurston's work in the 1970s, Robert E. Hemenway, Hengry Louis Gates Jr., Gayl Jones, John Lowe, Kathryn Lee Seidel, and Mary Helen Washington.