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Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
BOOK BY JESSE A. SHIPP, MUSIC BY WILL MARION COOK AND LYRICS BY PAUL LAWRENCE D (MUSICAL COMEDY.) In Dahomey a Negro Musical Comedy. Cast of Characters [including Bert Williams and George W. Walker, with Pete Hampton, Fred Douglas William Barker et al.], contents, with description of the settings. 140 pages of music with lyrics. Large 4to, original Art-Nouveau decorative stiff salmon wrappers, lacking a large diagonal piece from the upper left corner of the front cover; three pages with smaller diagonal chips to the blank upper margin; contents whole and quite clean. London: Keith, Prowse & Co, 1902
first edition of the vocal score to the first african american full-length musical comedy, written and played by african americans and performed at a major broadway house. In Dahomey opened on February 18, 1903, at the New York Theater, and played for 53 performances, considered to be a successful run. It had a tour in the United Kingdom, followed by a highly successful tour in the United States, lasting four years. In Dahomey is the story of an old Southern Negro, Mose Lightfoot, president of the Dahomey Colonization Society who has lost a valuable silver casket. He sends to Boston for detectives Shylock Homestead and Rareback Pinkerton (Williams and Walker). Failing to find the casket at Gatorville, Florida, Lightfoot's home, they accompany a group of colonists to Dahomey. There, liquor of any kind, when given as a present, is a sign of appreciation. Shylock and Rareback, having free access to the syndicate's stock of whiskey, present the King of Dahomey with three barrels of "appreciation," and in return are made Caboceers (Governors of a Province). In the meantime, the colonists, having had a misunderstanding with the King, are made prisoners to be executed on Customs Day. The new Caboceers, after supplying the King with his third barrel of "appreciation," secure his consent to liberate the collagists, after which an honor is conferred on Rareback and Shylock, which causes them to decide "There's No Place Like Home." [curtain].
