HUGHES, Langston. Dear Lovely Death. 1931. LIMITED EDITION. SIGNED BY HUGHES AND ADDITIONALLY INSCRIBED TO NOEL SULLIVAN.
Sale 1336 - Fine Books and Manuscripts, including Worlds of Tomorrow, and Americana
Jun 7, 2024
9:00AM CT
Live / Chicago
Estimate
$3,000 -
$4,000
Sold for $7,620
Sold prices are inclusive of Buyer’s Premium
Lot Description
HUGHES, Langston (1901-1967). Dear Lovely Death. Amenia, NY: Troutbeck Press, 1931.
8vo. Frontispiece portrait by Amy Spingarn; printed on handmade paper by Dard Hunter. Original black cloth-backed orange pictorial boards, remnant of printed label on spine (some overall wear). Provenance: Noël Sullivan (presentation inscription, bookplate) ; by descent to present owner.
LIMITED EDITION, one of 100 copies printed for private distribution SIGNED BY HUGHES. PRESENTATION COPY, ADDITIONALLY INSCRIBED TO SULLIVAN: “For Noel – remembering Carmel-by-the-Sea, Langston June 4, 1932.”
After returning to California from Portland and Seattle in May of 1932 (see previous lot), Langston Hughes returned to the San Francisco area to give a reading at the University of California at Berkeley. From there, Hughes, traveled down the Monterey Peninsula with Noël Sullivan to give a reading in Carmel-by-the-Sea. “Singing spirituals in his sometimes wayward basso profundo, Sullivan shared the stage with Hughes in a program at the Community Theater sponsored by the local John Reed Club…..[There], the master photographer Edward Weston, another friend of Sullivan’s, photographed Langston” (Rampersad, The Life of Langston Hughes, Vol. I, p.240). On June 3rd or 4th, Hughes left Carmel-by-the-Sea after a satisfying stay and headed south to Los Angeles; from there, he would travel to the Soviet Union (see Lot 218).
EXCEEDINGLY RARE: We trace no copies of this work at auction since 1980.
Fine African Americana from the Collections of Noël Sullivan & William P. and Alice D. Mahoney
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