Seraph on the Swanee: advance issue and presentation first ed. 2nd. Ptg.
A Presentation Copy Of Hurston’s Last Book,
Together With An Unsigned Pre-Publication Copy
Hurston, Zora Neale. Seraph on the Sewanee. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948.
8vo., blue printed wrappers, sewn; spine lightly faded.
In a specially made cloth slipcase with:
Hurston, Zora Neale. Seraph on the Sewanee. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948.
8vo.; tan cloth, stamped in brown; green dust-jacket; lightly soiled, else a handsome copy.
An advance issue in wrappers of Hurston’s last book, printing an early version of her autobiographical sketch on the back panel; together with a remarkable presentation copy (first edition, second printing, lacking Scribner’s “A” on the title page) inscribed by Hurston: To Janice Devine, a throne angel in God’s best choir, with affection, Zora Neale Hurston. Whiteman, 30 (citing the first edition). The printing records for Hurston’s last book are unavailable, but the first edition run—not to mention the number of advance copies—was surely tiny: at the time of its publication, Hurston was a has-been, well past her prime, living in obscurity in Southern Florida under an assumed name and working as a live-in maid.
We have been unable to unearth more about the recipient of this rare presentation copy, but she was assuredly one of the few people who remained in contact with Hurston during her fugitive Southern post-scandal years. It is doubtful that Hurston received more than a few copies from the publisher for presentation purposes; it is also quite unlikely that she would reveal her true identity to one of her neighbors at the very time that her arrest and jailing for alleged sodomy on a minor was daily front-page fodder in the black press. Yet in this tender inscription Hurston implies that she and the recipient share a special bond of mutual friendship and admiration, mixed in perhaps with a measure of gratitude.
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