The New Negro: An Interpretation by LOCKE, Alain - 1925

New York: Albert & Charles Boni. 1925. First. First edition. 446pp. Color portraits by Winold Reiss, and additional illustrations by Aaron Douglas. Quarter cloth and papercovered boards. Some sunning on the front board, and the corners are a little rubbed, else a near fine copy without the rare dustwrapper. This copy Inscribed by Locke on the half-title to important Fugitive author Donald Davidson: "For Donald Davidson, one of the 'New South,' with appreciation, Alain Locke. March 8, 1928." Drawing from works that Locke had compiled for the special issue of Survey Graphic, and greatly expanding it for this anthology, this book basically announced the Harlem Renaissance to the outside world. It would be hard to over emphasize the importance that this book played in the development and popularization of that movement. Includes articles, essays, poetry, and fiction by Locke, Rudolph Fisher, Jean Toomer, James Weldon Johnson, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Jessie Fauset, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Eric Walrond, Bruce Nugent, William Stanley Braithwaite, Angelina Grimke, W.E.B. Du Bois, Walter White, and many others. The portraits by Reiss, a German expressionist and teacher of Aaron Douglas, are particularly striking. A splendid association copy of one of the towering high spots of the Harlem Renaissance. Blockson 101 #64. .