"I COULD ONLY THINK OF HIM AS A MONSTER": FIRST EDITION OF PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR'S IMPORTANT FINAL VOLUME OF SHORT PROSE, THE HEART OF HAPPY HOLLOW, 1904

DUNBAR, Paul Laurence. The Heart of Happy Hollow. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1904. Octavo, original gilt-stamped green cloth. $850.

First edition of Dunbar's signal collection of 16 works of short prose, published only two years before his death, featuring his powerful story, "The Lynching of Jube Benson," containing six full-page illustrations including frontispiece, a handsome copy in bright gilt-stamped original cloth.

The son of former slaves, Dunbar struggled throughout his life against literary segregation in the white media, which viewed him solely as a "representative" of his race: "a symbol rather than a man or a poet" (Smith et al, African American Writers, 69). As one scholar observes, the media "largely ignored the impact that economic deprivation, the convict-lease system, lynchings, and the rollback in civil and political rights were having on African Americans, preferring instead nostalgic, sentimental stories" (Fishkin, Race and the Politics of Memory, 285). In his poetry and prose, "Dunbar had to create literary strategies capable of critiquing the social, political, economic and cultural problems facing African Americans that, at the same time, would not explicitly confront white readers' internalized beliefs regarding Blacks" (Morgan, Black Naturalism, 7). Best known in his time as a poet, his verses in dialect, "often depict slaves as dancing, singing, carefree residents of 'Happy Hollow.' On the other hand, a great deal of his lesser-known prose work speaks out forcefully against racial injustice," especially his story herein, The Lynching of Jube Benson (ANB).

Heart of Happy Hollow, his final volume of short prose, is perhaps best known for that story. Published two years before Dunbar's death, it came after a decade in which over a thousand African Americans were lynched. Directed at his white readers, like his poetry, it is a frame story narrated by a white doctor to two white men, one a reporter who declares, "I should like to see a real lynching." The doctor responds by recalling his part in the lynching of Jube, a young Black man charged by a white mob with murdering a white woman. The doctor tells of being the "first to pull upon the rope" that kills Jube. When a local white "ruffian," who had blackened his face, is brought forward by Jube's brother as the true murderer, it is too late to save Jube. With that, the doctor examines the dead woman to find the "skin of a white man" under her fingernails, confirming Jube's innocence. While critical assessment of Dunbar's work varies over time, his influence is far-reaching as the first Black American author able to "support himself solely as a result of his writing. His success inspired the next generation of Black writers, including James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes and Claude McKay to dream of and achieve literary success during the Harlem Renaissance" (ANB). First edition, first printing: containing 16 stories together in print for the first time, many serially issued earlier. Frontispiece and five full-page illustrations by E.W. Kemble. As issued without dust jacket. Blockson 5435. Work, 463. Small blank gift plate to preliminary blank leaf.

Interior very fresh with light edge-wear, mild rubbing to bright original cloth. A scarce about-fine copy.