JOHNSON, Georgia Douglas

Bronze

First edition. Introduction by Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois. Boards slightly splayed, slight offsetting to the endpapers from the jacket flaps, a very near fine copy in a lightly foxed, very good plus dustwrapper with a few very small chips at the extremities. Housed in a custom cloth clamshell case with morocco spine label. For many years Johnson, an African-American woman comfortably married to a prominent Washington attorney, read voraciously, pursued a serious interest in music, and hosted the capital's only African-American literary salon, "The Saturday Nighter's Club." At 41 she published her first book of poetry, The Heart of a Woman, which was well-received but criticized in some quarters for not specifically addressing race. At the dawn of the Harlem Renaissance she published this influential collection in response. Of particular note were her poems concerning alienation and mixed race (Cedric Dover called her "the first to give peoples of mixed origin the pride in themselves that they so badly needed"). A notable rarity of African-Americana, rarely found with the flimsy jacket intact. We have handled this copy once before, but have never seen another jacketed copy.

[BTC #72735]