I Wonder As I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey.

HUGHES, Langston.

$4,800.00

Item Number: 43089

New York: Rinehart, 1956.

First edition of Hughes’ classic autobiography. Octavo, original cloth. Association copy, lengthily inscribed by the author with a full page inscription on the front free endpaper, “Inscribed especially for Amy Spingarn, another “life” of mine, for a friend who has helped to make life of ever joyous and cultural interest. Most sincerely, Langston New York 1957.” The recipient, Amy Einstein Spingarn was a philanthropist, poet, and artist known especially for her paintings of prominent African-American cultural figures. Upon the death of her husband, Joel Spingarn, in 1939, Amy Spingarn was elected to finish out his term on the NAACP Board of Directors. Covers show some wear and some spotting in a very good dust jacket. An exceptional association.

In I Wonder as I Wander, Langston Hughes vividly recalls the most dramatic and intimate moments of his life in the turbulent 1930s. His wanderlust leads him to Cuba, Haiti, Russia, Soviet Central Asia, Japan, Spain (during its Civil War), through dictatorships, wars, revolutions. He meets and brings to life the famous and the humble, from Arthur Koestler to Emma, the Black Mammy of Moscow. It is the continuously amusing, wise revelation of an American writer journeying around the often strange and always exciting world he loves.