Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Paul Laurence Dunbar. MAJORS AND MINORS. Hadley & Hadley, Toledo, 1895.
Price: US$1250.00 + shipping
Description: First printing of the author's scarce second book. Brown cloth, stamped in gilt, with brown floral-design endpapers. Light soiling to covers include a thumb-sized stain on the lower front cover. Hinges tight and book actually in better condition than normally encountered. One of only 500 copies published. Considered as America's first major African-American poet, this is Dunbar's second book. Poorly produced, and printed cheaply, the publisher's mis-spelled the author's middle name as "Lawrence" on both the cover and the title page. Pages 87-90 are tighly bound but potrude very slightly from the rest of the textblock.
Seller: Kubik Fine Books Ltd., ABAA, Dayton, OH, U.S.A.
Price: US$2250.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: 12mo, 148pp., illustrated with frontispiece. Very good or better; a clean, sound copy in the publisher's beige-grey cloth, titled in gilt on the front board. Inner hinges tender, but holding, contemporary owner's name (G. P. Campbell of Wauseon, OH, near Toledo) on the front free endpaper. Tiny edge tear to the title page, the page block a touch shaken, but really a nicely surviving example of this fragile book; Dunbar's second and most consequential. The author William Dean Howells, at the time America's most famous literary critic, reviewed "Majors and Minors" favorably in Harper's Weekly soon after its release, and Dunbar was instantly launched into literary history. This second volume contains the first appearance of several passionate and political poems, including "The Colored Soldiers," and "Frederick Douglass," the latter written as an elegy for the great abolitionist, who had died in February 1895, and who Dunbar had had the good fortune to meet on a few occasions, even giving him a copy of his first book, Oak and Ivy (see Gayle, p. 21). "Majors and Minors" also contains Dunbar's most explicitly racially-conscious poem, "Ode to Ethiopia." BAL states that about 500 copies were printed, and perhaps as many of 1/5 of these are retained by libraries. Thus uncommon in the trade, and, being rather fragile, scarce in this condition. An important volume of African-American literary history. Metcalf, p. 7, BAL 4917.
Seller: Cleveland Book Company, ABAA, Rocky River, OH, U.S.A.
DUNBAR, Paul Laurence. Majors and Minors: Poems. , 1895.
Price: US$3300.00 + shipping
Description: DUNBAR, Paul Laurence. Majors and Minors: Poems. Original cloth. [Toledo, OH: Hadley & Hadley Printers and Binders, 1895]. BAL 4917. Blockson 101. Inscribed on the verso of front free endpaper: "Compliments of H. A. Tobey, Jan. 22d 1896." Tobey was Superintendent of the Toledo State Hospital, and an early supporter of Dunbar's work, who first approached the poet via a letter of 6 July 1895: "Some five or six months ago an acquaintance of mine in Dayton sent me your little book of poems [Oak and Ivy], which pleased me greatly. I am not a literary character, but believe I possess ordinary human instincts and emotions, and from my point of view I must compliment you enough to say that I believe you possess real poetical instinct. In these modern times, when it seems the chief aim and object of man is to obtain the `Almighty Dollar,' poets and poetry are below par and by the common mass of mankind their real intrinsic value is not appreciated . I am so thoroughly Democratic in my sentiments that race or condition with me `cuts but little figure,' in my estimation of men. Therefore I am anxious to assist or help you in any way I can. Enclosed herewith I send you a check for Five Dollars, ($5.00,) and would like to have you send me the number of volumes of your poems that this amount will buy." That support and the friendship it engendered led to the publication of Majors and Minors. Soon after encountering Dunbar's work, Tobey invited him to read at the Toledo State Hospital and started to promote his career. When Dunbar told Tobey and his friend, the lawyer Charles A. Thatcher, that he wished to publish a second book on his own, as he had Oak & Ivy, they offered to underwrite him. The three contracted Hadley & Hadley in Toledo to print the book. (The firm mainly printed posters and catalogues; this may have been their first literary job). They struggled to get copies printed before Christmas 1895 and the book appeared a few months later. "Dunbar spent a good deal of time in Toledo in the spring of 1896. During his stay, Henry Tobey's enthusiasm for Dunbar's verse proved infectious. The day Tobey received his first finished copy of Majors and Minors, he happened to be staying overnight in a downtown hotel after being called into the city on business and met a friend interested in poetry and together they sat up reading t.
Seller: G.S. MacManus Co., ABAA, Bryn Mawr, PA, U.S.A.
Dunbar, Paul Lawrence [Laurence]. Major and Minors. Hadley & Hadley Printers, Toledo, OH, 1895.
Price: US$6800.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: First edition, first printing of the Paul Laurence Dunbar's second book. Signed by the author and inscribed "with compliments" on the recto of the frontis. Bound in publisher's brownish gray cloth with titles in gilt on the upper board. Good with staining to cloth and gilt lettering mostly rubbed, wear to spine ends. Owner bookplate and pencil notation to front endsheet, inner hinges slightly exposed at front and rear. Pages lightly toned. Scarce.
Seller: Burnside Rare Books, ABAA, Portland, OR, U.S.A.
Dunbar, Paul. Major and Minors. Hadley & Hadley, 1895.
Price: US$7500.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: First Edition, First Printing SIGNED by Paul Lawrence Dunbar on a laid in signature. A beautiful copy. The book is in nice condition. The binding is tight, with light wear to the spine and edges. The pages are clean with no writing, marks or bookplates in the book. Overall, a wonderful copy of this TRUE FIRST EDITION SIGNED by Dunbar. We buy Dunbar First Editions.
Seller: Magnum Opus Rare Books, Missoula, MT, U.S.A.