"ESPECIALLY FOR ZERO—WITH ADMIRATION": AN EXCEPTIONAL PRESENTATION/ASSOCIATION FIRST EDITION OF TAMBOURINES TO GLORY, WONDERFULLY INSCRIBED BY LANGSTON HUGHES TO ZERO MOSTEL

HUGHES, Langston. Tambourines to Glory. New York: John Day, (1958). Octavo, original black cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box.

First edition of one of "Hughes' best plays and the crowning glory of his dramatic career," presentation/association copy inscribed by Hughes to famed actor Zero Mostel—who, like Hughes, was targeted by McCarthyism and the blacklist. Hughes' bold inscription, in his trademark green ink, reads, "Especially for Zero—with admiration—Sincerely, Langston, New York, July 7, 1961."

In Tambourines to Glory, Hughes' story of a Harlem storefront church, he achieved his goal of a "theatre of celebration, which presents models for African Americans and entertainment for general audiences without compromising political principles. He also reaffirmed that black music and humor could be effective masks of social protest" (Langston Hughes, Folk Dramatist, 170). Originally drafted as a play in the early 1950s, Hughes ultimately issued the unproduced play as a novel, "which prompted the interest of Broadway producers. They brought it to New York in 1963, where its Broadway opening featured gospel singer Clara Ward as Birdie Lie… and Louis Gossett as Big-Eyed Buddy Lomax" (McLaren in Bloom, Langston Hughes, 84-5). Once criticized by members of the black church, it is now "considered to be among Hughes' best plays and the crowning glory of his dramatic career" (Nelson, ed, African American Dramatists, 241).

This presentation copy has an especially significant association in Hughes' inscription to Zero Mostel, whose career on stage and in film included Fiddler on the Roof (Broadway 1964) and Mel Brooks' The Producers (1968). The comic genius of Mostel has been ranked "with such greats as Bert Lahr, Groucho Marx and two of his own idols—Charlie Chaplin and W. C. Fields" (New York Times). Like Hughes, Mostel was attacked for alleged communist sympathies and the careers of both men were vitally threatened. Mostel, who was blacklisted long before his 1955 testimony before HUAC, refused to name names in his testimony and slyly mocked his interrogators. This kept him blacklisted and unable to work until a 1958 off-Broadway performance as Leopold Bloom, in an adaptation of Ulysses, won him an Obie Award. In Martin Ritt's 1976 film, The Front, Mostel played a blacklisted entertainer in a role based on his own life. It would be his final film performance. Hughes faced HUAC two years before Mostel when he was subpoenaed by the Senate committee chaired by McCarthy. With Hughes' works designated subversive, he was nevertheless able to sidestep the attacks without naming names. Despite this, he was marked as a communist sympathizer. "For the rest of his life… he could never be sure that he would not find himself once more under scrutiny" (Leach, Langston Hughes, 137). Bruccoli & Clark, 165. Blockson 6533.

Book fine; only lightest edge-wear to about-fine dust jacket.