Mar 24, 2022 - Sale 2598

Sale 2598 - Lot 298

Price Realized: $ 4,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(LITERATURE.) Lewis Howard Latimer. Poems of Love and Life. 3 portrait plates tipped in as issued. [26] printed pages on folded leaves, plus 6 blank leaves and endpapers. 4to, original limp calf with gilt title, quite worn, needs rebinding; light soiling and minimal wear to contents; uncut and unopened, #39 of a limited edition of 50, signed and inscribed "To the Hest family with compliments of the author L.H. Latimer." [New York], 1925
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Additional Details

First and only edition, one of only fifty copies printed on Italian hand-made paper. Lewis Howard Latimer (1848-1928) was born near Boston; his parents had recently escaped from slavery and gained fame in abolitionist circles. Lewis joined the Navy during the Civil War and became a draftsman, then went on to a notable career as an inventor. Working for Alexander Graham Bell, he drafted the patent drawings for the telephone; he went to work for Thomas Edison in 1884. He was responsible for numerous patents in lighting, refrigeration, and more; in 1890 he wrote the first book on electric lighting. He is a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, and his house in Queens, NY is a designated city landmark.

In addition to his impressive career as an inventor, Latimer was a well-rounded renaissance man: he taught English classes to immigrants, played violin, and wrote plays and poems. The present volume contains 22 of his poems which were collected by his friends and published on the occasion of his 77th birthday. The first 11 pieces, "Poems of Love," were dedicated to his late wife Mary, such as "The Ebon Venus." The other 11,"Poems of Life," are prefaced with a plate showing Latimer's two daughters as infants and adults.

Provenance: inscribed to the Hest family on the limitation page. A New York Age article on the Latimers' golden wedding anniversary party (1 December 1923) lists among the guests "Mrs. Hest and Miss R. Hest." According to the 1920 census, Ida Hest (born circa 1867) was a Russian immigrant who lived in the Bronx with her New York-born daughter Rose (born circa 1900), who worked as a messenger for a stockbroker.

3 in OCLC, and only one other traced at auction, at Swann, 25 February 2010, lot 266.