"ESPECIALLY FOR HENRY AND MOLLIE WHO LIVED HALF OF THIS BOOK (AMD MORE) WITH ME": IMPORTANT PRESENTATION/ASSOCIATION FIRST EDITION OF I WONDER AS I WANDER, INSCRIBED BY LANGSTON HUGHES IN THE YEAR OF PUBLICATION TO NAACP DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC RELATIONS AND HIS WIFE, FOUNDING HEAD OF THE NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE

HUGHES, Langston. I Wonder as I Wander. An Autobiographical Journey. New York, Toronto: Rinehart, (1956). Octavo, original gray cloth, original dust jacket.

First edition of one of Hughes' "wisest and most informative books," the second and final volume of his autobiography, a major presentation/association copy that brings together three core figures in the history of American civil rights, inscribed by Hughes in the year of publication to Henry Lee Moon, NAACP's longtime influential director of public relations, and his wife, Mollie Lewis Moon, founder and president of the National Urban League, with Hughes' warm inscription in his trademark green ink, "Especially for Henry and Mollie who lived half of this book (and more) with me. Sincerely, Langston Hughes, Nov. 8, 1956."

Langston Hughes remains "one of America's most influential voices… his value to the development of African American and American art and culture has been inestimable" (Tidwell and Raga, Montage of a Dream, 1). As one of his biographers observed, in "a career which covered four decades, in which he tried every literary genre, he wrote some of the most revolutionary works by any American writer of his generation" (Faith Berry). In I Wonder as I Wander, Hughes' second and final autobiography, he vividly recalls the turbulent 1930s and his travels across the globe, from Harlem to Russia, to Cuba, Haiti, Japan, and Spain during its Civil War. Hughes began work on it in July 1954 and, after a short break, returned to it in May 1955. That November he "delivered the manuscript, amounting to 789 pages, of I Wonder as I Wander. He had weighed it as carefully as if it were his newborn baby—seven pounds, eight ounces… a job well done." In 1956 "the happy publication of I Wonder as I Wander… seemed to lift a staggering burden from Langston's shoulders" (Rampersad, Life, 249-61).

"An immensely interesting book" (New Yorker), I Wonder as I Wander was praised by noted author Amiri Baraka as "among the wisest and most informative books to issue from Langston's pen." First edition, first printing: colophon with circled "R" on copyright page. See Blockson 5499 (later edition). Henry Lee Moon, the NAACP's director of public relations for nearly two decades, was the organization's powerful and influential voice during "its most turbulent years, when it was campaigning to rid the country of discriminatory laws" (New York Times). A longtime friend of Hughes, Moon also edited the NAACP's magazine Crisis (1965-74) and was a close colleague of W.E.B. Du Bois, editing a major work on Du Bois, and authoring the book, Balance of Power (1948), "the first major book on the electoral dimension of African Americans' political development during the first half of the 20th century" (Kilson, Transformation, 172:17n).

Below Henry Lee Moon's bookplate is a notation in an unidentified hand: "See pp 94-95 for famous remark." In those pages Hughes writes of a 1932 trip to Russia with nearly 20 African Americans chosen for a Soviet film about race in America. He recalls the group's brief vacation in Odessa and notes that one unnamed man was "left behind in Moscow, hospitalized with a minor ailment." In fact, Moon was that man, and it was Moon who suddenly arrived from Moscow, called the group together to announce the film's unexpected cancellation and, in Hughes' words, "solemnly announced, 'Comrades, we've been screwed.'" Mollie Lewis, Moon's future wife, was also on that trip. The founder and president of the National Urban League Guild (1942-62), she received a 1990 President's Volunteer Action Award from President George Bush and "her commitment to civil rights and equality… led her to serve for many years as the secretary of the Urban League Board of Directors" (Yale University).

Interior fresh, mild edge-wear to lightly toned spine; bright dust jacket. A highly desirable about-fine inscribed presentation copy with a major association.