The Life & Works of Paul Laurence Dunbar...Agents Wanted.
Naperville, IL: J.L. Nichols & Company, [ca. 1907]. [98]pp., variously paginated, plus photographic frontispiece of the author, twenty doubled-sided plates, and eight pages of lined paper at rear for recording subscriptions. Original maroon cloth stamped in gilt on front cover and in more elaborate black and white floral designs with central photographic image of Dunbar on rear cover, with exemplar of morocco leather spine affixed to rear pastedown. Moderate edge wear, light soiling and rubbing, gilt on front cover a bit worn. Text quite clean. Very good. Item #12900
A delightful salesman's sample intended for use by canvassing booksellers seeking subscriptions for the final published edition of Lida Keck Wiggins' The Life and Works of Paul Laurence Dunbar (1907). As with similar canvassing books or salesman's dummies, the present work includes a selection of text from the finished work, which in this case includes a sampling of Wiggins' biography of Dunbar, plus separate sections printing some of Dunbar's poetry and stories. In addition to the text, the work includes a healthy sampling of illustrations intended for the final work, featuring portraits of notables important in Dunbar's life and career (such as Frederick Douglass, President William McKinley, and Dunbar's mother Matilda, among others), Dunbar's house in Dayton, Ohio, and numerous scenes illustrating Dunbar's literary works.
The present work was published by J.L. Nichols & Company, touted on the title page as "Manufacturing Publishers of High Grade Subscription Books." Just below the imprint on the title page, the publishers have included a notice reading, "Agents Wanted" for selling the book door-to-door. A very nice copy of a scarce African-American literary salesman's dummy. OCLC lists ten copies in institutions, at Keiser University (Florida), Illinois, Southern Illinois, Hutchinson Community College (Kansas), Amherst, Ohio State, the Bancroft, Yale, American University, and the University of Delaware.
Price: $850