(LITERATURE AND POETRY.) DUNBAR, PAUL LAURENCE. Group of seven first editions: Lyrics of Lowly Life * The Uncalled * Poems of Cabin and Field * Candle Lightin' Time * When Malindy Sings * L'il Gal * Howdy Homey Howdy. Frontispieces and all illustrations present. The first two titles 8vo, the remainder small 4to's. condition generally very good with the exception of poems of cabin and field which lacks and endpaper-should be seen. New York: Dodd Mead, 1896-1900
first edition thus, one of only eight copies, printed on japan vellum, of a total edition of ninety-nine copies. Jupiter Hammon, (1711-circa 1805) African American slave-poet who, in 1761 became the first African American to be published in North America. Born in 1711 in a house now known as Lloyd Manor in Lloyd Harbor, NY (Town of Huntington), Hammon was held by four generations of the Lloyd family. His parents were both slaves held by the Lloyds, but unlike most slaves, his father, named Opium, had learned to read and write. The Lloyds encouraged young Jupiter as well to attend school, where he too learned to read and write. As an adult, he worked for the Lloyds as a domestic servant, clerk, farmhand, artisan, and devout Christian. Hammon's first published poem, "An Evening Thought. Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries. . . (1760) appeared as a broadside in 1761. He published three other poems and three sermon-essays, portions of all appear in this volume. Although never emancipated, Hammon participated in Revolutionary War groups such as the Spartan Project. There on September 24, 1786, he delivered his "Address to the Negroes of the State of New York", also known as the "Hammon Address." He was seventy-six years old and had spent his lifetime in slavery. He said, "If we should ever get to Heaven, we shall find nobody to reproach us for being black, or for being slaves." He also said that, while he personally had no wish to be free, he did wish others, especially the young negroes, were free.
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