Not Without Laughter
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1933. Hardcover. 7 3/4 by 5 1/4 inches; 195 by 133 mm. viii, 324 pages. Early printing, in jacket, and signed by the author in black ink on the front free endpaper, "Sincerely,/Langston Hughes/Oct. 13,/ 1935". Hughes's first novel, set in a small town in Kansas and inspired by his boyhood in Lawrence and Topeka, Kansas. Item #890
Hardcover; book and jacket in very good condition. Bound in bright orange cloth lettered in black and decorated in black and brown. Mild forward lean to the spine, and light tanning to the endpapers from long-term contact with the jacket, but in general the book is quite bright, clean and solid. Verso of the title page states, "Published July 25, 1930/Reprinted Three Times/Cheaper Edition, January 2, 1933"'; this copy, with 1933 on the title page, seems to be the first printing of the Cheaper Edition. Jacket is priced "$1.00 net" on its front flap. Top page edges are black; title page is printed in black. The jacket, showing dancing men and women in green and pink on a white background, was designed by Harlem Renaissance artist Aaron Douglas, who like Hughes grew up in Kansas. The jacket has a series of small chips along the top edge and a larger loss at the lower end of the spine panel, with a closed tear going three inches up the front spine fold and loss of the designer's initials and some of the publisher's name. Uniform tanning to the jacket, dimming its colors but not its overall effect. Jacket enclosed in a clear, archival-quality, removable protective cover.
Price: $650.00