The New Negro: An Interpretation
New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1925. First edition. 8vo, 446pp. Color and black and white plates by Winold Reiss, Aaron Douglas, and Miguel Covarrubias. Decorated endpapers, bibliography. Quarter cream cloth lettered in blue, blue paper boards, original illustrated jacket. Inscribed by Walter White to Clarence Darrow and dated in December of 1925 on the half title page. Additionally signed by W.E.B. Du Bois and James Weldon Johnson. Very good, ex Richmond Public Library (CA) with stamps to top and bottom of page block, title page, and rear pastedown. Front endpaper chipped at upper corner, page block edge lightly foxed, boards rubbed and worn along edges. Jacket price clipped, chipped and with loss along top edge, spine ends, and corners. The former owner has reinforced the verso with several yellow post-its. A good example.
Preeminent association copy of this cornerstone of the Harlem Renaissance, presented to Clarence Darrow by then assistant secretary of the NAACP, Walter White, and dated 10 December, 1925 in New York. Then secretary, James Weldon Johnson, and founder, W.E.B. Du Bois also signed this copy.
At the end of 1925, on the heels of the highly publicized Scopes trial, Clarence Darrow writes in his autobiography, The Story of My Life, 1932:
"I had determined not to get into any more cases that required hard work and brought me into conflict with the crowd. I had fought for the minority long enough. I wanted to rest, but....something always comes along to disturb my restful contemplations..."
White's sentiment for Darrow is evident in this inscription, "with warmest regard and affection," the book having been signed after first getting Darrow to take the case, second a hung jury, and last, the separate trials for each of the men involved. White's son was born in 1927 and was named Walter Carl Darrow after the man who had successfully defended his brother.
A most significant copy of an historically important compilation, surviving in the rare jacket.
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