Books

New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, Inc, 1922. First edition. First edition, first printing. xxii, 95 pp. Bound in publisher's crimson-brown cloth with paper spine label, variant with no known priority. Very Good+ with a little bubbling to cloth, toning to spine label and a tiny bit of biopredation to spine, in a Fine example of the scarce dust jacket, crisp and unfaded. An uncommon work of Harlem Renaissance poetry in its dust jacket in stunning condition. In The Guardian Carol Rumens writes of this collection, quoting from its titular poem at the end, "Like other poets of the Harlem Renaissance, McKay, though a powerful advocate of black liberation, took the dominant 'voice' of traditional culture, mastered it and made it accommodate his different ways of seeing, his visions and his anger. The fusion of urban realism with more traditional Romantic tropes in Harlem Shadows still leaves room for clear blasts of rage against "the wretched way / Of poverty, dishonor and disgrace.