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33 CUNARD, Nancy (ed.) Negro Anthology. Compiled and edited by Nancy Cunard. London: Wishart & Co., 1934 The dedication copy – “the great social and cultural achievements of a long-suffering people” First edition, first impression, first issue, the dedication copy, inscribed by Cunard on the first blank: “Henry your own Nancy”. The printed dedication reads, “Dedicated to Henry Crowder my first Negro friend”. Crowder inspired and worked with Cunard on this compendious collection of writings celebrating Blackness
and Harlem just as its Renaissance was ending; he contributed the score to a Walter Lowenfels piece called “Creed”. Born in Georgia, Henry Crowder (1890–1954) became a jazz musician in Washington, playing Saturday nights at the club where Duke Ellington’s group gigged on Mondays and Thursdays. He met Cunard (1896–1965) in Venice while performing at the Hotel Luna on a tour of Europe. They became involved both romantically and professionally, living together for the next eight years, and building a printshop for the Hours Press, the small press which Cunard had founded, just outside Paris. In January 1930, they moved the printshop back to Paris where Crowder could both print and perform with his jazz band, and began work on the Negro Anthology . Cunard eventually closed the Press in 1931 to focus on research for Negro Anthology .
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