DUNBAR, Paul Laurence, words by, and Will Marion Cook, music by. [Sheet music]: Returned: A Negro Ballad as sung by Miss Abbie Mitchell at Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt's Newport Theatre Party (Music Supplement of the N.Y. American and Journal, Sunday, September 21, 1902). Music Supplement of The N. Y. American and Journal / Harry Von Tilzer, New York, 1902.

Price: US$350.00 + shipping

Condition: Very Good

Description: First edition thus. Folio. Single bifolium making four pages. Music shop stamp at the bottom of pages three and four, some edgewear including a small chip at the bottom of the fold, else a very good or better copy of this fragile publication. For voice and piano. The front cover features a photo of Abbie Mitchell. Dunbar and Cook discovered Abbie Mitchell singing on her fire escape when she was only 14. In 1898 they cast her in their one-act musical *Clorindy: The Origin of the Cake Walk*, which was the first all-Black musical performed at a major Broadway house. Later, Mitchell would marry Cook and in 1903 she appeared in the first full-length musical by an all-Black cast, Dunbar and Marion's *In Dahomey*, eventually going on to perform in the premier production of Gershwin's *Porgy and Bess* and becoming the first to record the song "Summertime" from that musical. *OCLC* locates only two holdings of this Music Supplement of the *N.Y. American and Journal* edition.

Seller: Between the Covers-Rare Books, Inc. ABAA, Gloucester City, NJ, U.S.A.