Mar 20 at 10:30 AM - Sale 2697 -
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Sale 2697 - Lot 265

Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(LITERATURE.) W.E.B. Du Bois. The Quest of the Silver Fleece: A Novel. 4 plates. 434 pages. Octavo, 8 x 5¼ inches, publisher's pictorial cloth, minor wear and fading; minimal wear and foxing to contents; signed and inscribed on front free endpaper: "In memory of the 'last light that lies on England.' W.E.B.D." Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co., 1911
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Additional Details

First edition, signed and inscribed. An allegorical novel of race and economics; the "silver fleece" of the title is cotton. "Cotton is the chief character in DuBois' first novel, which takes place in Toomsville, Alabama. Alwyn and Zora are the two Negroes who quickly distinguish themselves as models of virtue and justice. . . . Southern aristocracy is satirized and northern profits in southern cotton supply the additional economic background"--Whiteman, page 19. "An ably documented sociological novel. . . . Satirizes black and white politicians in Washington"--Gloster, pages 74-79. Blockson 6205; Margolies 150; Partington 2343.

Provenance: said to have been purchased at the estate sale of Don Speed Smith Goodloe (1878-1959), who had been principal of what later became Bowie State University; sold by the purchaser to our consignor circa the 1990s. We trace no other signed examples at auction.

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