[AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY & LITERATURE] MCKAY, Claude (poems); EASTMAN, Max (introduction)

Harlem Shadows: The Poems of Claude McKay

New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922. First Edition. Octavo (19.5cm); grey paper and navy blue cloth-covered boards, with printed title label mounted to upper spine; xxii,95,[3]pp. Light wear to spine ends and extremities, with faint foxing to upper edge of textblock and endpapers, and some light rubbing to title label; Near Fine, lacking the scarce dustjacket.

McKay's first book of poems published in the United States, several of which first appeared in the pages of Seven Arts, Pearson's, The Liberator, The Messenger, and The Cambridge Magazine. "McKay's most enduring poems are his sonnets which are clear, restrained and well structured. On page 53 of his slender volume Harlem Shadows, is one of his most widely quoted and reprinted poems, If We Must Die. The poem, written in 1919, excoriated America for its injustice to his race during the race riots during that summer" (BLOCKSON 60, p.47). One of the foundational works of the Harlem Renaissance. PERRY 375; BLOCKSON 5417.

Price: $1,500.00

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