"HIS MAGNUM OPUS": LIMITED FIRST EDITION OF THE BLACK CHRIST, 1929, ONE OF ONLY 128 COPIES SIGNED BY LEADING HARLEM RENAISSANCE POET COUNTEE CULLEN

CULLEN, Countee. The Black Christ & Other Poems… With Decorations by Charles Cullen. New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1929. Octavo, original half blue cloth and blue paper boards, printed silver spine label, uncut and partially unopened.

Signed limited first edition, number 68 of only 127 copies signed by Countee Cullen, of his last major Harlem Renaissance volume of poetry, featuring his controversial epic poem, The Black Christ, with striking frontispiece and illustrations by Charles Cullen.

Cullen was at the forefront in the Harlem Renaissance in helping create "a body of poetry that was unprecedented in its volume, variety and achievement" (Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, 727). Together with Hughes' Weary Blues (1926) and McKay's Harlem Shadows (1922), Cullen's key works of the period, Color (1925), Copper Sun (1927), Ballad of the Brown Girl (1927) and Black Christ (1929), crafted bold new aesthetics, even as they challenged what Langston Hughes called the "racial mountain." While Cullen was criticized, at times, for refusing to directly attack racism, he was defended by Harlem Renaissance leader and poet, James Weldon Johnson, who wrote: "it is because Cullen revolts against… racial limitations—technical and spiritual—that the best of his poetry is motivated by race. He is always seeking to free himself and his art from these bonds. He never entirely escapes, but… brings forth poetry that contains the quintessence of race consciousness" (Book of American Poetry).

Black Christ, the title work of this volume of 47 poems, is particularly famed as "his magnum opus." Linking the lynching of a black man to the crucifixion of Christ, the epic poem has been praised for its focus on racism with "bitter words… burning my tongue down to its root." To others, however, it backs away from the subject by seeking a more universal theme and ultimately endorsing "traditions of Christian humility and long-suffering" (Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, 1038). First Edition with code "I-D" on copyright page, indicating publication in September 1929. Issued along with a trade edition; no priority established. Containing frontispiece and illustrations, many full page, by Art Deco artist Charles Cullen (no relation to the poet). With laid-in publisher's promotional bookplate featuring all four Cullen works; without original slipcase. Blockson 4803. See Work 457, 458. Bookplate.

Interior very fresh, only mild rubbing to fragile spine label, as often. A beautiful copy.