Simple’s Uncle Sam.

HUGHES, Langston.

Item Number: 124763

New York: Hill and Wang, 1965.

First edition of the final volume in Hughes’ series featuring Harlem native Jesse B. Semple, better known as “Simple”. Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author in the year of publication, “Simple again ~ to Mac and Estelle ~ Sincerely, Langston. Harlem, October, 1965.” Very good in a very good dust jacket. Jacket design by Saul Lambert.

"Hughes was already established as a poet of the people when he began a column in the Chicago Defender in 1942… in 1943 Hughes created Jesse B. Semple to express the views of ordinary black men… none of his characters captures the hearts and minds of readers as did Semple, better known as Simple" (Harper, Simple's Uncle Sam, xi). The nearly 48 stories in Simple's Uncle Sam, each appearing in book form for the first time and the last of the Simple series, moved critic J. Saunders Redding to declare "that with this volume Simple had taken his place among 'the great folk hero-gods in the American pantheon.'" The episodes "burst with references to real people, creating a graceful blend of fiction and real footage… Indelible events such as the bombing deaths of four little girls in a Birmingham Sunday School, the lynching of Emmett Till, and the murder of Medgar Evers become salient references (Harper, Simple's Last Moves, 202). Simple's Uncle Sam memorably ends "as did no other volume—with that signature phrase, that code word that evokes Hughes' dream: 'Dream on, dreamer, dream on.'"