Dayton: Published by United Brethren Publishing House, 1893.
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Hardcover. First edition. Pale blue (or pale blue-green) cloth titled in gilt on front cover (see further note below). Previous owner's penciled name ("M.J. Snowden") on rear endpaper, very modest rubbing on rear cover, near fine. No priority to cloth color has been established, and we also handled copies in dark blue, brown, olive green, and red. *BAL 4916* notes only blue (by which we assume dark blue, as one of the more common colors). We assume the job printer had it bound in whatever colors of cloth came to hand. In our experience red is the rarest color, with this pale blue cloth not far behind. Despite *BAL's* assertion that blue was the primary binding, brown seems the most common.
500 copies of this book were printed, with some sources reporting that 250 of those were destroyed by a fire. Dunbar published the book at his own expense while working as an elevator operator; he sold the book to his passengers for a dollar a copy and recouped his printing cost within two weeks.
The owner of this copy, Mrs. Maria Josephine Snowden, was an African American woman from Lexington, Kentucky. She eventually moved to Dayton, Ohio, and later lived in Richmond, Virginia. Mrs. Snowden had two daughters: Anna Jean Snowden, a graduate of Howard University and a teacher; and Lillian Snowden Bazley, a bookkeeper, who eventually went on to become the Right Worthy Grand Secretary of the Independent Order of St. Luke in Richmond, Virginia, succeeding Maggie L. Walker after Walker's death in 1934. Certainly this book is one of the handful of cornerstone titles of any serious collection of African-American literature. A lovely copy of an important and rare book in one of the scarcer binding colors.
Item #463778
