Claude McKay. HARLEM SHADOWS. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922. First edition; with no statement of edition or printings on copyright. Hardcover. Quarter black cloth over textured brown paper-covered boards with marbled effect (one of several publisher's variants), spine with white title label. Small 8vo; xxi, [1], 95pp. With an introduction by Max Eastman. Names of previous owners, Dr. W. Edward Farrison and Dr. Perry, both former English professors at North Carolina Central University in Durham, written in ink on endpapers. Perry 375.

7 3/4 x 5 3/8 in.

This is McKay's fourth book of poetry, but the first to be published in the U.S., and a key book of the Harlem Renaissance. It includes many of his well-known poems, such as "Harlem Shadows," "Spring in New Hampshire," and "If We Must Die," and as described by Margaret Perry, "His themes of nostalgia and his anti-metropolis spirit are displayed in these verses" (Perry, The Harlem Renaissance, p. 118).

Boards with minor edgewear and rubbed corners, minimal scuffing, and wear to cloth at lower board, spine lightly sunned with rubbing at ends and stains/mark to label; front paste-down with light marks, wear, and grime, offsetting to rear endpapers; pages lightly toned with occasional small mark and underlining in pencil in Introduction and Author's Word with use of red and blue ink on one page; slight cracking at gutter between pages 90 and 91, xvi and xvii glued at inner margin, additional wear (residue, ink, thinning paper, and offsetting) to xviii. Good to very good/lacking jacket.