Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mules and Men | 1935 | Zora Neale Hurston | Buy |
| 2 | I Love Myself When I Am Laughing… And Then Again | 1979 | Zora Neale Hurston | Buy |
| 3 | Hurston Reader | 1979 | Zora Neale Hurston | Buy |
| 4 | The Sanctified Church | 1981 | Zora Neale Hurston | Buy |
| 5 | Spunk! | 1985 | Zora Neale Hurston | Buy |
| 6 | The Complete Stories | 1995 | Zora Neale Hurston | Buy |
| 7 | Novels and Stories | 1995 | Zora Neale Hurston | Buy |
| 8 | Zora Neale Hurston: Stories | 1995 | Zora Neale Hurston | Buy |
| 9 | Zora Neale Hurston: Plays | 1998 | Zora Neale Hurston | Buy |
| 10 | Go Gator and Muddy the Water | 1999 | Zora Neale Hurston | Buy |
| 11 | Every Tongue Got to Confess | 2001 | Zora Neale Hurston | Buy |
| 12 | In Search of Our Sister’s Garden | 2003 | Zora Neale Hurston | Buy |
| 13 | What’s the Hurry, Fox? | 2004 | Zora Neale Hurston | Buy |
| 14 | The Skull Talks Back | 2004 | Zora Neale Hurston | Buy |
| 15 | Lies and Other Tall Tales | 2005 | Zora Neale Hurston | Buy |
| 16 | Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick | 2020 | Zora Neale Hurston | Buy |
| 17 | I Love Myself When I Am Laughing… And Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive | 2020 | Zora Neale Hurston | Buy |
| 18 | Bookmarks in the Pages of Life | 2020 | Zora Neale Hurston | Buy |
| 19 | Collected Early Works | 2022 | Zora Neale Hurston | Buy |
Zora Neale Hurston’s short story collections span decades of publishing, from Mules and Men in 1935 to posthumous compilations like Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick in 2020. Many of these volumes collect her magazine fiction, folklore research, and previously unpublished material.
The collections reflect her dual role as creative writer and anthropologist. Mules and Men combines folktales with first-person narrative, while later volumes like Every Tongue Got to Confess (2001) present raw folklore material she gathered in the field. Several collections, including The Complete Stories (1995), have helped bring lesser-known Hurston works to a wider audience.