"AN ESPECIALLY ILLUMINATING LOOK INTO THE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN HER LIFE AND ART": ZORA NEALE HURSTON'S DUST TRACKS ON A ROAD, 1942

HURSTON, Zora Neale. Dust Tracks on a Road. An Autobiography. Philadelphia London New York: J.B. Lippincott, 1942. Octavo, original beige cloth, original dust jacket. $6500.

First edition of Hurston's fascinating memoir, at once elusive and honest in chronicling her unique "growth and development as a writer."

"Hurston was more prolific than any black woman writer before her… [She] recognized that African Americans, despite their oppression by whites, had created alternative spaces, at least in language, where they asserted their selfhood" (Smith, Baechler & Litz, 175, 186). Dust Tracks "chronicles her growth and development as a writer, as well as her many migrations throughout the South, the North, and the Caribbean… Read alongside her novels, it provides an especially illuminating look into the connections between her life and art" (Jones, Critical Companion, 29). To Daniel J. Sundahl, Dust Tracks illustrates "Hurston's awareness of the uniqueness of her experience… She was free in a more personal way… to penetrate the yearning human heart to portray the pendulum orbit of laughter in tears"("Voice of Her Own" in Bloom, Zora Neale Hurston, 24, 33). "First Edition" stated on copyright page with no printings noted. Blockson 5189. Bruccoli & Clark I:192. See Jordan 323.4.

Book with faint dampstain to front cloth panel and along bottom edge of text block, not visible on pages. Bright dust jacket unusually nice with minor wear to spine ends and along front flap fold. A near-fine copy.