Sold for $10,160

Large 4to (8 1/2 x 11 3/4 in.), ½ gilt-lettered white linen over embossed brown boards, profile of an African American man embossed onto front cover, top edge gilt (scattered spotting to spine; overall the plates are clean and bright, with occasional light spotting/staining). Illustrated with 90 full-page, hand-pulled copper photogravures after photographs by Ulmann depicting formerly enslaved people and their descendants on the Gullah coastal region of South Carolina. LIMITED ISSUE, 122 of 350 copies signed and numbered by Ulmann and Peterkin on the colophon. Accompanied by a separate photogravure of a young African American female subject signed by Ulmann.

Roll, Jordan, Roll was critically acclaimed for providing a narrative account examining the descendants of formerly enslaved African Americans living in the Gullah coastal region of South Carolina as fully-dimensional individuals rather than as stereotypes. American photographer Doris Ullman (1882-1934) conceived of the idea for the book following a meeting with Julia Peterkin at a literary gathering in 1929. The portraits of the Gullah subjects were taken on the Lang Syne plantation, located near St. Matthews, Calhoun County, South Carolina. Ullman's portraits were then paired with stories composed by Peterkin and presented in what is considered one of the greatest documentary photobooks of the 1930s.