Roy DeCarava and Langston Hughes

Original 1955 edition

Softcover

New York: Simon & Schuster, 1955. First edition. Stated first printing. Softcover. Good Plus. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. A brilliant photographic view of black Harlem in the 1950's, presented as a fictional vignette seen through the eyes of a feisty, widowed woman, delighted to find her "feet caught in the sweet flypaper of life" and "...dogged if (she) want(s) to get loose."

Book is lightly rubbed and tanned with light wear. Scuffing and moderate rubbing to the spine.  Internally, prior owner name and date to the inside of the front cover. Tanning to page edges. Binding intact.     

All in all a good quality first edition of this important work. 98 pages. Profuse b/w photos. The Sweet Flypaper of Life describes, in words and pictures, what the authors have seen and known and felt deeply about their people. Life in Harlem may be hard: getting up each morning and going to work, knowing that today will be like yesterday and tomorrow. Yet there are rewards, moments, a man walking in the sun, a woman laughing, couples in the park, the watering of a garden on a window sill, a father's touch, a child's glance. 'We've had so many books about how bad life is,' Langston Hughes says. 'Maybe it's time to have one showing how good it is.' Listed in Andrew Roth’s The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the 20th Century. Beautifully reproduced in gravure. A great book.

A very nice copy of the original 1955 soft cover edition and a wonderful collaboration of text by Langston Hughes and photography by Roy DeCarava.

Scarce first edition, first printing.