July 2022 Catalogue

Black Americana and Abolition – 36 – Bauman Rare Books - July 2022 First Edition Of John And Alan Lomax’s Negro Folk Songs As Sung By Leadbelly, 1936 59. LOMAX, John A. and LOMAX, Alan. Negro Folk Songs As Sung by Lead Belly. New York, 1936. Quarto, original yellow cloth, dust jacket. $2600. First edition of the Lomax’ collection of nearly 50 songs by Lead Belly, including classics such as Good Night Irene and Midnight Special, with frontispiece of Leadbelly by acclaimed jazz photographer Otto Hess, in very scarce original dust jacket. In the 1930s John Lomax and his son Alan traveled across America, making the first recordings of artists such as Woody Guthrie and Muddy Waters. “Lead Belly, with his particularly rich store of folk music and his brilliance as a performer, was probably the Lomax’s greatest discovery” (Songwriters Hall of Fame). Lomax made “a series of recordings that was donated to the Library of Congress and that formed the foundation” for Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Lead Belly (ANB). Book fine; light edge-wear with small chip to spine head of colorful near-fine dust jacket. “The First American Martyr To The Freedom Of The Press, And The Freedom Of The Slave” (John Quincy Adams) 60. (LOVEJOY, Elijah P.) LOVEJOY, Joseph C. and Owen. Memoir of the Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy; Who Was Murdered in Defence of the Liberty of the Press, At Alton, Illinois, Nov. 7, 1837. With an Introduction by John Quincy Adams. New York, 1838. Octavo, original gray cloth. $3200. First edition of the publisher and editor’s memoir, issued the year after his murder, in which he was killed by “five bullets in his heart, while defending his fourth press from an armed, arsonist mob,” with introduction by John Quincy Adams. In 1836, a mob dragged Francis McIntosh, a free black man accused of murder, from the St. Louis jail and set him on fire, killing him. “Lovejoy’s Observer described the lynching by fire as an ‘awful murder and savage barbarity’… [and] attacked Judge Lawless” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch). After mobs destroyed his shop a third time, “Lovejoy died… five bullets in his heart, while defending his fourth press from an armed, arsonist mob” (DeLombard, 57). This copy contains lightly penciled presentation inscriptions on both front and rear blank leaves, reportedly by the wife of co-author Joseph C. Lovejoy, to: “Anna and E.H. Lakeman presented by Mrs. Sarah Lovejoy.” Interior very fresh with faintest occasional foxing, mere trace of dampstaining at the rear, very mild edgewear, minimal soiling to original cloth. Near-fine.

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