"A SUDDEN, SENSITIVE GASP OF FEELING"

HUGHES, Langston. Fields of Wonder. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1947. Original green cloth, original dust jacket; housed in a custom clamshell box. $4500.

First edition of Hughes' timeless collection of poems, inscribed by him, "Especially for Lawrence Gallagher, Sincerely, Langston Hughes. New York, January 1955."

Fields of Wonder, published while Hughes was a visiting writer in residence at Atlanta University, contains over 70 poems in nine sections, including the poem "Border Line," which was the one work Hughes chose when asked to submit a poem for the 1962 anthology, Poet's Choice. Fields of Wonder has been especially praised for passages that spark "a sudden, sensitive gasp of feeling" (New York Times). Over the course of his extraordinary career, "Hughes sought to change the way people looked not only at African Americans and art but at the world" (ANB). Bruccoli & Clark, 161. Blockson 5248.

Book with one small spot to front panel, dust jacket with expert restoration to extremities. A handsome inscribed copy.