Dunbar, Paul Laurence Howdy Honey Howdy First Edition First Printing. 1905 African American Poetry

Dunbar, Paul Laurence (1872-1906) Howdy Honey Howdy

New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1905. Illustrated with photographs by Leigh Richmond Miner. First Edition, First Printing. A Very Good Hardcover.

Brown cloth with decorated spine and front; Paste-on photograph on the front. 8vo; 8.75 inches tall; [125] pages including frontispiece. The bindings are tight and square. Text clean, light even toning. Moderate shelf handling wear, some hand soiling present on the rear board. Ownership inscription in light pencil on the top of the front free endpage. Illustrated with photographs by Leigh Richmond Miner. Decorations including the front board and spine by Will Jenkins

An uncommon title in collectible condition.

Contains the following poems:

Howdy, honey, howdy; Encouragement; De way tings come; The delinquent; Accountability; Protest; Possum; Foolin' wid de seasons; Angelina; A death song; A Christmas folksong; Faith; Hope; A love letter; Puttin' the baby away; Advice; Dreamin' town; Scamp; Opportunity; A summer night; The old cabin. [All of the poems were first printed elsewhere]

One of the first influential Black poets in American literature and was internationally acclaimed for his dialectic verse. Dunbar’s literary body is regarded as an impressive representation of Black life in turn-of-the-century America.

“Paul Laurence Dunbar stands out as the first poet from the Negro race in the United States to show a combined mastery over poetic material and poetic technique, to reveal innate literary distinction in what he wrote, and to maintain a high level of performance.

He was the first to rise to a height from which he could take a perspective view of his own race. He was the first to see objectively its humor, its superstitions, its short-comings; the first to feel sympathetically its heart-wounds, its yearnings, its aspirations, and to voice them all in a purely literary form.” [Johnson, Book of American Poetry]