THE STRENGTH OF GIDEON and Other Stories.
With Illustrations by E.W. Kemble. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1900. Original brown cloth pictorially decorated in black, white and gilt.
First Edition of this collection of twenty short stories and sketches of turn-of-the-century Afro-American life -- with illustrations by E.W. Kemble. This was Dunbar's second collection of short stories, following FOLKS FROM DIXIE (1898); there would be two more collections -- IN OLD PLANTATION DAYS (1903) and THE HEART OF HAPPY HOLLOW (1904). In our experience, other than his first two books of verse published as a favor by the Wright Brothers' father, it is Dunbar's prose works that are his scarcest, and especially three of them published consecutively -- this title and the novel THE LOVE OF LANDRY in 1900, followed by the novel THE FANATICS in 1901.
This is a fine, bright copy; atypically, the white pigment is not flaking off. Blanck 4930; Metcalf pp 71-72. Item #15105
Price: $625.00