Fine Literature, Americana Bibliographies, Books in All Fiel
by PBA Galleries Auctions & Appraisers
368 lots
2012
Viewing Notes9th & 10th October 9am to 5pm. Day of sale 9am to 11am.
Sale NotesBuyer's Premium applies to first 100,000 USD and is 10% thereafter. www.pbagalleries.com
Lot 1: (African American Literature) Corrothers, James D.
Estimated Price: Log in or create account to view price data
Description: (African American Literature) Corrothers, James D. The Black Cat Club: Negro Humor & Folk-Lore. 264 pp. Silhouette illustrations throughout by J.K. Bryans. (8vo), original pictorial red cloth, with black and white decorations on cover and spine. First Edition. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1902 Born in Michigan after the Civil War, James David Corrothers (1869-1917) began his writing career as a Chicago journalist; inspired by the writing of Paul Laurence Dunbar, he collected some of his own early work in this anthology, which used so-called "Negro dialect" in its humorous "character studies of Negro life...in the great cities of the North". This was ironic, considering that Corrothers resigned his first job with the Chicago Tribune when a white reporter rewrote the first article he submitted to the paper using such "dialect". None of Corrothers other books - which focus on a theme of protest against racial discrimination - were written in similar vernacular, which many Black intellectuals of the time considered racist and degrading; it's said that Corrothers later regretted writing The Black Cat Club, even though the book was successful and established him, by the time of his death during World War I, as a leading African-American literary figure, who anticipated the protest literature of the Harlem Renaissance. Spine leaning a touch, lightly rubbed extremities; lacks front free endpaper; very good.
View additional info »Lot 2: (African American Literature) Dunbar, Alice Moore,
Estimated Price: Log in or create account to view price data
Description: (African American Literature) Dunbar, Alice Moore, editor. Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence: The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the Days of Slavery to the Present Time. 512 pp. Frontispiece of Frederick Douglass. (8vo) red and green cloth. First Edition. New York: Bookery Publishing Company, [1914] An anthology of some 50 speeches, compiled by the widow of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation - "the birth of the Negro into manhood". Many of the speakers were famous - Douglass, Prince Saunders, Francis Grimke, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B.DuBois, Henry Highland Garnet, P.B.S. Pinchback, John R. Lynch, Robert Russa Morton, Kelly Miller - but some, found with the assistance of pioneering Black bibliophile Arthur Schomburg - were more obscure and their contributions in this volume are historically, as well as rhetorically, notable - for instance, a 1904 speech on Army training by the Chaplain of a "Buffalo Soldiers" regiment. Mrs. Dunbar, an author in her own right, as well as an active suffragette and political reformer, later edited one of the first literary anthologies of Black writers and poets at the start of the Harlem Renaissance. This earlier work is more scarce. Rubbed and a touch frayed at spine ends and corners, light soiling; very good.
View additional info »Lot 3: (African American Literature) Henderson, Elliott
Estimated Price: Log in or create account to view price data
Description: (African American Literature) Henderson, Elliott B. Darkey Ditties - inscribed by the author. 54 pp. (8vo), original textured red cloth, lettered in gilt. First Edition. Columbus, Ohio: 1915 Inscribed in pencil on front end-paper, "To the distinguished Mr. John Gammeter, one of Nature's noblemen. Elliott B. Henderson. July 17th, 1918", with Gammeter printed signature, Akron, Ohio, on front pastedown. A little-known African-American poet of the Dunbar era, Henderson (1877-1944) was born in Ohio, where he lived throughout his life, his grandfather having come north from Virginia (via the Underground Railroad?) long before the Civil War. He published eight other volumes of poems between 1904 and 1915, and several in later life, most of these being in Black dialect. John Gammeter, to whom this volume is inscribed, was an engineer and aviator of Swiss-German descent who headed the experimental division of the Goodrich Rubber Company, producing over 300 inventions, including a dirigible balloon used by the US Navy in World War I, and - his least celebrated but most lucrative - an improved latex condom. Covers lightly rubbed; hinges cracked or starting, last leaf of text and rear free endpaper with closed tear, faint finger soiling; very good.
View additional info »Lot 4: Algren, Nelson. A Walk on the Wild Side. Yellow
Estimated Price: Log in or create account to view price data
Description: Algren, Nelson. A Walk on the Wild Side. Yellow and blue boards; jacket with photograph by Arthur Shay. First Edition. New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, [1956] Light foxing to jacket, some faint dust soiling and light edges wear; volume a bit dusty, front joint shaken; all very good.
View additional info »Lot 5: Atherton, Gertrude. The Splendid Idle Forties.
Estimated Price: Log in or create account to view price data
Description: Atherton, Gertrude. The Splendid Idle Forties. (8vo), red cloth, decorated and lettered in dark gilt, dust jacket printed in brown. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, [Copyright 1902] "Perhaps the best known collection of stories of that romantic period of California history when the incoming Americans were first intermingling with the Californians of rancho and presidio..." - Zamorano. Reprint of the Macmillan edition published in 1902 In a scarce jacket. Jacket with advertisement on rear panel for Atherton's The Conqueror, 32nd Printing. Jacket spine a touch darkened, a small stain on front panel, lightly chipped edges with some tiny tears; a touch of shelf wear to volume and an ink ownership name on front free endpaper; else a fine volume in a very good jacket.
View additional info »
