TOOMER, JEAN

Essentials. Definitions of Aphorisms. Small 8vo, cloth, original two-tone labels on front cover and spine. Fine copy. Chicago: Private Edition, 1931 FIRST EDITION. ONE OF 1000 NUMBERED COPIES. INSCRIBED BY L. B. LATIMER, Toomer's father-in-law at the foot of the foreword, "My son, Jean." Jean Toomer is one of the most enigmatic and un-Afrocentric of the Harlem Renaissance writers. His work is profoundly influenced by such mystics as Gurdjieff and the Theosophists. In terms of experimentation, his only novel, Cane (1923), is to African-American literature what James Joyce's Ulysses is to modern English literature.