Page 211 - Swann Galleries - Printed & Manuscript African Americana- Sale 2308 - March 21, 2013

385 ● (LITERATURE AND POETRY.)
WHITE, WALTER. The Fire in the
Flint. 300 pages. 8vo, original decorative
red cloth; extremities very lightly rubbed
with no loss of cloth.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1924
[500/750]
FIRST EDITION OF WHITE’S SECOND
NOVEL, INSCRIBED AND SIGNED: “To
Clarence and Ann, with all good wished, ever
sincerely, Walter White, New York City, 29
August 1924.”White’s novel holds no shred of
hope for blacks in the rural South: “Dr.
Kenneth Harper returns to his native Georgia
to practice medicine. His efforts to help poor
Negroes incur local white hatred. His sister is
raped and his brother commits suicide after
wreaking vengeance upon the white rapists. Dr.
Harper is lynched after giving aid to a white
patient.” From Maxwell Whiteman’s Century
of Fiction by American Negroes (Philadelphia,
1955.)
385
386 ● (LITERATURE AND POETRY.) WRIGHT, RICHARD. Puissance Noire
[Black Power.] 400 pages. Thick 8vo, original printed yellow wrappers.
[Paris, 1956.] [1,500/2,500]
FIRST F RENCH EDITION, INSCRIBED BY WRIGHT TO HIS PHOTOGRAPHER FRIEND: “To
Gisele with all my very best wishes, sincerely yours Dick. March 21, 1956, Paris.” Black
Power is a collection of essays drawn from Wright’s trip through Africa’s Gold Coast.
386