Description
The author’s personal copy of her book, Paul Robeson, Negro, with her ownership and gift inscription.
Octavo, [2], 153pp, [3]. Black cloth, title stamped in gilt on spine. No additional printings noted. Complete with a frontispiece portrait and 16 illustrated plates. Light wear along the spine, offsetting to front pastedown. Internally clean. (Blockson 3710) Housed in a custom quarter morocco chemise.
Inscribed on the front free endpaper: “My own copy, Eslanda Goode Robeson.”
With a gift inscription below: “For Sally + _ / with our love / Paul + Essie / London, August 6, 1930.”
Eslanda Goode Robeson (1895-1965), known as “Essie,” was an American anthropologist, writer, and civil rights activist educated at Columbia University. She conducted research in Africa and authored African Journey (1945), a landmark work challenging Western racial assumptions. The wife of Paul Robeson, she authored this biography of his early career, which gives a candid look at his personality and infidelity.
