Jonah’s Gourd Vine.

NEALE HURSTON, Zora.

$3,000.00

Item Number: 141711

Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1934.

First edition of the author’s first book. Octavo, bound in full morocco by the Harcourt Bindery, gilt titles to the spine, gilt ruled to the front and rear panels, raised bands, inner dentelles, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. In near fine condition, name to the title page. With an introduction by Fanny Hurst. Rare and desirable.

Praised by Carl Sandburg as "a bold and beautiful book, many a page priceless and unforgettable." Written in only three to four months in 1934, Jonah's Gourd Vine is the first novel published by acclaimed anthropologist, writer, and Harlem Renaissance personality Zora Neale Hurston. The book, based loosely on her parents' lives, explores the life and consciousness of John Pearson and his relationship with his wife Lucy Potts and other women in the town. Pearson was depicted as a minister in a small black Florida town, Eatonville, which in reality was Hurston's hometown. In Hurston's work one hears and feels the authentic voice, power, and sensibilities of people and places. In this novel, she used events from her childhood and the sermons she heard as a preacher's daughter to give structure and texture to this novel.