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Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(LITERATURE.) Lorraine Hansberry. To Be Young, Gifted, and Black: The World of Lorraine Hansberry . . . in Her Own Words. [2], 47, 39 mimeograph pages. Quarto, 11 x 8½ inches, in original printed vinyl wrappers; moderate wear and paper clip stain to first two leaves, page 2:34 edited with two passages taped down on a blank sheet; inscribed in pencil "For Stan" on title page. New York, 1967
Lorraine Hansberry died young of cancer in January 1965. Her ex-husband and literary executor Robert Nemiroff adapted her published and unpublished writings into a play, "To Be Young, Gifted and Black," which had a successful off-Broadway run starting in 1968. It was published in book form as an autobiography in 1969, published as a stage script in 1971, and was produced as a television movie in 1972.
This copy of the unpublished 1967 script was provided by Nemiroff to Stan Phillips, the artist who designed the posters for Hansberry's plays. See Menoukha Case, "Lorraine Hansberry: Writing Between Rocks and Hard Places," in the 2013 anthology "Black Writers and the Left."
With two volumes which support the provenance--Hansberry. "The Movement: Documentary of a Struggle for Equality." 127 printed pages. Quarto, publisher's cloth-backed boards; dampstained, worn. Inscribed to the consignor's parents in an unknown hand: "Dear Stan & Harriet: This is surely not our year for sending elaborate gifts, but please accept this as a small token for all you've done in a very trying year. With deep appreciation & gratitude & in the spirit that binds us," and signed "Bob Nemiroff." New York, 1964.
And--"To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words," adapted by Robert Nemiroff. 266 printed pages. Octavo, publisher's cloth, In worn dust jacket. Signed and inscribed in November 1969: "For Stan and Harriet, who are very much a part of the spirit that is in these pages. With love, Bob." Englewood Cliffs, NJ, [1969].
