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Results for: African-American History & Lit.


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Only edition. First book appearance of “To the Memory of Charles B. Storrs” by John Greenleaf Whittier at p. 86-88 . 12mo (7-1/8 x 4-1/2"), [iv], 90pp; medium brown wrappers (sewn) printed in black. Some staining and mild overall use to wrappers; moderate foxing to text pages. About very good. When the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society declined to admit women, sisters Ann Greene Chapman and Maria Weston Chapman with others such as Anne Warren Weston, decided to form their own society. Conscience, rather than custom or propriety, should guide them. The Society asserted, to the discomfort of other Abolitionists, that blacks and whites were equal and invited African Americans to join the BFASS. They circulated petitions, raised monies, and spoke out against slavery with such energy that it was not long before fellow Bostonians began to show their disdain. Husbands experienced a decline in business. Sons were not admitted to Harvard College. Walking down Washington Street, long Boston’s shopping district, Chapman found herself subject to slurs and insults hurled from shop doorways. Yet the women refused to wilt. The BFASS inspired other women to form their own societies in Massachusetts and elsewhere and in Maria Weston Chapman they had a strikingly courageous and stalwart spirit armed with an able pen. Maria Weston Chapman (1806-1885), antislavery and women’s rights activist and editor, was a pillar of the BFASS and became William Lloyd Garrison's principal lieutenant. "Firm in her convictions and a formidable opponent to those who disagreed with her, Chapman's leadership and influence in the American abolitionist movement were profound". [WOMEN'S WRITING]. From 1836 to 1838 she edited the BFASS annual report which offered a platform for her opinions as well as providing a conventional account of BFASS activities. Chapman details the activities of the Society through the year: their first quarterly meeting in January where the women gathered “without molestation”; the petition to end slavery in the District of Columbia; transcripts of members’ conversations with escaped slaves and the abuses to which they had been subject; correspondence with other antislavery groups; and, an account of the BFASS intervention on behalf of a young six-year old slave girl brought from Louisiana to keep her mistress company while the family summered in Massachusetts. The BFASS decided to bring suit brought on behalf of the child; since the Massachusetts constitution declared all men free and equal, slavery had no standing. The Massachusetts Supreme Court decided in favor of the Abolitionists. The case, scholar Karen Woods Weierman believes, transformed American slave law. Chapman also takes occasion to discuss the religious establishment and the many hypocrisies she thinks attends it. She scorns the idea that women are lesser beings and suggests “Such harem notions, the relics of barbarous ages, will not be entirely extinguished while slavery exists, for they are only manifestations of its spirit”. Women’s rights, in short, are inextricably bound up with the rights of all. [Whittier] BAL 21698. (Blanck records the report also issued in goldstamped cloth and cloth with a printed label at the front).
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOSTON FEMALE ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY Being a Concise History of the Cases of the Slave Child, Med, and of the Women Demanded as Slaves of the Supreme Judicial Court of Mass. With All the Other Proceedings of the Society
[Chapman, Maria W(eston)].
Boston: Published by the Society Isaac Knapp Printer, 1836.
Price: $1,750.00
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First edition. 8vo, 189pp; dark gray boards with black cloth spine lettered in red and silver; pictorial dust jacket designed by George Sanders. Faint shadow at rear panel; minor touches of wear to top edge of dust jacket. Near fine. Gloria Naylor (b. 1950) published her first book, THE WOMEN OF BREWSTER PLACE, while still completing her MA at Yale University in Afro-American studies. This exceptional debut received the American Book Award for Best First Novel. Later, under Oprah Winfrey's direction, the novel was adapted for television. MASTERPIECES OF WOMEN'S LITERATURE, pp. 568-573. OXFORD COMPANION TO AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE, pp. 527-528.
THE WOMEN OF BREWSTER PLACE A Novel in Seven Stories
Naylor, Gloria.
New York: The Viking Press, (1982).
Price: $450.00
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AUTOGRAPH LETTER, regarding Myrtilla Miner's 'The Colored Girls School"
[African-American], [Miner, Myrtilla] Burgess, D.
New York: to Messrs. G & C Merriam, Sept. 22 1852.
Price: $350.00
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First edition. Inscribed at a preliminary leaf in ink: "January 11, 1996/Dorothy West/and/best wishes". Small 8vo, 240pp; off-white paper over boards with white linen spine lettered in gold; pictorial dust jacket. Fine. West (1907-1998), novelist, short story writer, journalist and editor, made frequent contributions to the journals of the Harlem Renaissance and as an editor and founder of CHALLENGE and NEW CHALLENGE "she helped to oversee the transition from the Harlem Renaissance to the naturalistic realism of the 1930s" [African American Literature]. Her first novel THE LIVING IS EASY (1948) is a keystone for other African American women writers, and its republication in 1982 reawakened interest in the Dorothy West and her work. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis sought out the writer and provided steady encouragement and support throughout the development of the writer's second novel, THE WEDDING. OXFORD GUIDE TO AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE, pp. 766-767.
THE WEDDING
West, Dorothy.
New York: Doubleday, (1995).
Price: $275.00
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First edition. 1/26 lettered copies, this being copy "S". 8vo, 116pp; gray leather stamped in black front and spine with PEN/Faulkner logo in blind at front; publisher's black cloth clamshell box stamped in gold and blind. Illustratedwith an original silk screen signed by Lou Stovall. Brief essays on "Obsession" by Louis Begley, David Bradley, Robert Olen Butler, Thomas Flanagan, Ernest Gaines, Barry Hannah, Maureen Howard, Jayne Anne Phillips, George Plimpton, Francine Prose, Vikram Seth, Mary Lee Settle, Ntozake Shange, Elizabeth Spencer and Scott Spencer and signed by them. Fine.
OBSESSION
Begley, Louis et al.
(Rockville, MD): Quill and Brush, 1994.
Price: $250.00
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First edition. 8vo, 337pp; black cloth stamped in gold on the spine; yellow dust jacket designed by R.D. Scudellari. Front flap of dust jacket is price-clipped; a little rumpling at top edge of rear pane; mild sunning to spine. Very good. Toni Morrison's third book which received the National Book Critics Circle Award and was named as one of THE NEW YORK TIMES 100 books of the 20th century. Morrison received the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature. NYPL BOOKS OF THE CENTURY, p. 33. THE NEW YORK TIMES 100, No. 93.
SONG OF SOLOMON
Morrison, Toni.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977.
Price: $200.00
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First edition. Review copy with publisher's slip laid in. 8vo, 295pp; black boards with red cloth spine lettered in gold; red dust jacket. Crinkle at front flap; spine mildly sunned. Very good. Toni Cade Bambara (b. 1939), short story writer, essayist and novelist, has been a community activist and an educator as well as a writer. Recently she has been working on screenplays. GORILLA, MY LOVE (1972) established her reputation as a short story writer. THE SALT EATERS, her first novel, focuses on Velma Henry, an activist frustrated by divisiveness within the black community. The novel received the American Book Award and is perhaps her finest work. Fine. WOMEN'S WRITING, p. 93.
THE SALT EATERS
Bambara, Toni Cade.
New York: Random House, (1980).
Price: $125.00
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Important account of the Nat Turner Insurrection. 8vo, 245pp; printed tan wrappers. Blind owner's stamp front cover; covers edgeworn with spine lacking a 1/4" at foot and partially detached. About very good. This issue contains Part IV of Harriet Beecher Stowe's AGNES OF SORRENTO, as well as articles on Stephen Douglas, the impact of the Civil War, etc. Most interesting is T.W. Higginson's account of "Nat Turner's Insurrection" of 1831. Higginson, who would command the first all-black division in the Civil War, was the first serious writer to examine the Turner rebellion. A well-known abolitionist, Higginson's sympathies with the fiery preacher and slave are clear. A critical landmark in the literature of the Southampton Insurrection.
ATLANTIC MONTHLY, August, 1861, (Number 46)
[Nat Turner] Higginson, T.W.
Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1861.
Price: $100.00
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Color photograph, 4 wide x 6" high, of a pastel portrait of Marian Anderson as she sings. Signed by Marian Anderson with a soft-tip pen on the reverse with a flourish beneath her name. BLACK WOMEN IN AMERICA, pp. 29-33.
COLOR PHOTOGRAPH OF PASTEL PORTRAIT, SIGNED
Anderson, Marian.
[N.P.]: , [N.D.].
Price: $100.00
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First edition. 8vo, 73pp; + "About the Author"; deep turquoise cloth lettered in gold at the spine; decorated red dust jacket. Fine. Rita Dove, b. 1952, poet, novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist and educator, served as U.S. Poet Laureate in 1993, the youngest and first African American to enjoy this honor. GRACE NOTES is her fourth collection of poetry. OXFORD COMPANION TO AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE, pp. 226-227.
GRACE NOTES
Dove, Rita.
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, (1989).
Price: $100.00
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First edition. Signed by Dori Sanders at the title page. Small 8vo, 243pp; peach boards with blue cloth spine stamped in gold; pictorial dust jacket illustrated by Cynthia Amrine. With errata slip and signed bookmark laid in. The writer's second book. Fine.
HER OWN PLACE A Novel
Sanders, Dori.
Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, (1993).
Price: $80.00
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First edition. 12mo, 147pp; pictorial blue cloth stamped in dark blue on the front cover and lettered in gilt on the spine; t.e.g. Some offsetting along gutters; owner's ink inscription dated October, 1895 at front flyleaf. Fine. Illustrated by E.W. Kemble, the illustrator of THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, with a frontispiece and black and white engravings throughout the text. The three stories, "sketches of negro character" according to the Preface, originally appeared in THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. Dana had published under the initials "O.A.W." for 'Only a Woman'. Wright III 1386.
OUR PHIL and Other Stories
Dana, Katharine Floyd.
Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1889.
Price: $75.00
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First edition. Signed by the writer at the title page. Small 8vo, 299pp; reddish-purple boards with black cloth spine stamped in gold; black dust jacket with illustration by Jose Ortega front cover. Fine. Review copy of the writer's first book with a "Dear Reviewer" letter from a HarperCollins' publicist laid in. A young black woman raised in the quiet of rural Virginia is thrust into the chaos and racial turbulence of Detroit. Toni Morrison described this debut as "truly extraordinary".
THE GOOD NEGRESS
Verdelle, A.J.
Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, (1995).
Price: $75.00
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First edition. No. 126 of 200 hardcover copies signed by the author. 8vo, 169pp; decorated gray paper over boards with bright orange cloth spine, printed label at spine; acetate wrapper (but no dust jacket, as issued). Small ding to lower edge of front cover. Near fine. Wanda Coleman's second book of poetry.
IMAGOES
Coleman, Wanda.
Santa Rosa: Black Sparrow Press, 1983.
Price: $75.00
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IN SEARCH OF OUR MOTHERS' GARDENS Womanist Prose by Alice Walker
Walker, Alice.
New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, (1983).
Price: $75.00
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SINGING IN THE COMEBACK CHOIR
Campbell, Bebe Moore.
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, (1998).
Price: $50.00
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First edition. Limited edition: 1/100 hardcover copies numbered and signed copies, this being copy 27. 8vo, 291pp; turquoise paper, with photographs of Los Angeles, over boards; turquoise cloth spine; paper label at spine; blue endpapers. Fine. "A Career in Brief" introduces this book of reflections and memories which ranges from "Jazz Blues" to "Interview with Nikki Giovanni" to "Sleepless in L.A." Black Sparrow also printed a soft cover edition of the title. 26 lettered copies were handbound by Earle Gray.
NATIVE IN A STRANGE LAND Trials & Tremors
Coleman, Wanda.
Santa Rosa: Black Sparrow Press, 1996.
Price: $50.00
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WHERE EVIL SLEEPS
Wesley, Valerie Wilson.
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, (1996).
Price: $45.00
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First edition. 8vo, 209pp; green boards with blue spine lettered in copper; turquoise dust jacket with illustration by Jody Kim front cover. Fine. The writer's second book (and first novel). A Granta nominee.
ONE DARK BODY
Sherman, Charlotte Watson.
(New York): HarperCollins, (1993).
Price: $45.00
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First edition. Signed by Barbara Neely at the title page. 8vo, 258pp; red boards with black spine lettered in gold; pictorial dust jacket in red, orange, yellow, purple, white and black. Touch of ink residue to verso of title page, else fine. The third appearance of Blanche White, housekeeper and detective extraordinary.
BLANCHE CLEANS UP
Neely, Barbara.
(New York): Viking, (1998).
Price: $45.00
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