Books

Handsomely bound in finely woven orange cloth with a drawing of an alligator the front boards. A very, clean, crisp, and tight throughout. With uniform oxidation on the title page. Inscribed on the half-title page: "Mother and Father from Norman and Nan, Christmas, 1935". With a touch of wear to the extremities and a faint crease along the spine. An attractive and collectible copy. Hurston traveled extensively in the Caribbean and the American South and immersed herself in local cultural practices to conduct her anthropological research. Based on her work in the South, sponsored from 1928 to 1932 by Charlotte Osgood Mason, a wealthy philanthropist, Hurston wrote Mules and Men in 1935. She was doing research in lumber camps and commented on the practice of white men in power taking black women as sexual concubines, including having them bear children. This later was referred to as "paramour rights," based in the men's power under racial and related to practices during slavery times. The book also includes much folklore. She used this material as well in fictional treatment developed for her novels such as Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934). In 1936 and 1937, Hurston traveled to Jamaica and Haiti for research, with support from the Guggenheim Foundation. She drew from this for her anthropological work, Tell My Horse (1938). From October 1947 to February 1948, she lived in Honduras, at the north coastal town of Puerto Cort�s. She had some hopes of locating either Mayan ruins or vestiges of an as yet undiscovered civilization. While in Puerto Cort�s, she wrote much of Seraph on the Suwanee, set in Florida. Hurston expressed interest in the polyethnic nature of the population in the region (many, such as the Miskito Zambu and Garifuna, were of partial African ancestry and had developed creole cultures). (Wikipedia) First Edition with the copyright of 1935 and no subsequent printings listed.

A collection of African American folktales gathered by Zora Neale Hurston during her ethnographic studies in the Southern United States.