44 CUNARD, Nancy (ed.) Negro Anthology. London: Wishart & Co., 1934 “You have made the name Cunard stand for more than ships” 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 it. “ Negro is a staggering accomplishment – in purpose, breadth of information, and size. Almost 8 pounds, 855 pages (12 inches by 10 inches), with 200 entries by 150 contributors (the majority, Black) and nearly 400 illustrations, it was, and in many ways remains, unique – an encyclopaedic introduction to the history, social and political conditions, and cultural achievements of the Black population throughout the world . . . It is one of the earliest examples of African American, cross-cultural, and transnational studies and a call to all civilised people to condemn racial discrimination and appreciate the great social and cultural achievements of a long- suffering people” (Gordon, p. 181). No publisher would accept the book, so Cunard had the book printed at her own expense,
and controlled every detail of the publication: “ Negro would have to be printed exactly as she wished, bound in sepia-brown cloth with paper of a specific texture and colour (which had to be custom made), and its title, in red letters, would scroll diagonally from top left to bottom right. She would control every phase of its gestation and correct all final proofs” (Gordon, p. 163). “While Crowder later wrote that ‘the book has many very glaring faults, some of which I consider pitiful’, he praised the anthology privately – after all, it was dedicated to him. ‘The gratitude of the Negro race is yours,’ he wrote her. ‘Nancy you have done well. You have made the name Cunard stand for more than ships. Your deep sympathy for the Negro breathes through the pages.’ This marked a benedictory end to their turbulent, transformative relationship” (Young). The 150 contributors included: Louis Armstrong, Samuel Beckett, Norman Douglas, Theodore Dreiser, W. E. B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Ezra Pound, and William Carlos Williams. This copy includes the censored essay by Rene Crevel on unnumbered pages at pp. 581–583: “The censors intervened and insisted that Rene Crevel’s ‘The negress in the Brothel,’ translated by Samuel Beckett, be removed from Negro . Undaunted, Cunard had the three pages set secretly by the radical Utopia Press and tipped them in while binding the volumes herself. The essay is not listed in the table of contents but is actually in the printed book – a reminder of her radical resourcefulness” (Marcus, p. 139). It is rarely found signed or inscribed; 1,000 copies of the work were printed, but a large number of unsold copies were destroyed in a warehouse fire during the Blitz. Quarto. Original black cloth, spine and front board lettered in red, map of the Black Belt of America on rear cover. Housed in a custom red cloth solander box. Illustrations throughout. A fresh, bright copy, remarkably clean and well preserved. ¶ Shari Benstock, Women of the Left Bank: Paris, 1900–1940 , 1986; Lois Gordon, Nancy Cunard: Heiress, Muse, Political Idealist , 2007; Mae Henderson, ed., Borders, Boundaries, and Frames: Essays in Cultural Criticism and Cultural , 1995; Jane Marcus, Hearts of Darkness: White Women Write Race , 2004; Kevin Young, “And I one of Them”, New York Review , 2 December 2021. £75,000 [155290]
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All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
LOUDER THAN WORDS
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