NEGRO

[Paul Robeson, celebrated black stage and screen actor prominent in the Harlem Renaissance and Civil Rights Movement.] Autograph Signature ('Paul Robeson') written on photograph.

Author: 
Paul Robeson [ Paul Leroy Robeson ] (1898-1976), black American baritone singer and actor prominent in the Harlem Renaissance and Civil Rights Movement
Publication details: 
No place or date.
£25.00

On 11 x 17.5 piece of shiny art paper, cut from a programme. The signature ?Paul Robeson? is written across Robeson?s front, beneath his smiling face in a black and white photograph. Beneath the photograph is the caption: ? ?A voice like his is worth waiting ten years to hear, and an art like his comes once in a generation.? / THE TORONTO EVENING TELEGRAM?. On the reverse are part of the lyrics from two songs, the second being ?Short?nin? bread?.

[ Paul Robeson, celebrated black stage and screen actor involved in the Civil Rights Movement. ] Autograph Signature and message.

Author: 
Paul Robeson [ Paul Leroy Robeson ] (1898-1976), black American actor and singer involved in the Civil Rights Movement
Publication details: 
Place not stated. 16 March 1960.
£30.00

In blue ink on one side of 10.5 x 14 cm. leaf torn from autograph album. Good bold signature. Reads: 'With best wishes | to you | & thanks | Paul Robeson | Mar 16/60'.

[ Entomology; Forel ] Typed Letter Signed ('A Forel') by Forel, with photo; Autograph Letter Signed ('Edd: Clodd') by Clodd on blacks in Jamaica; ALS ('P. Celesia') by Celesia; in a copy of the English translation of Forel's 'The Senses of Insects'.

Author: 
Auguste Forel [Auguste-Henri Forel] (1848-1931), Swiss entomologist and psychiatrist; Edward Clodd (1840-1930), English anthropologist; Paolo Celesia (1872-1916), Italian biologist [Jamaica; racism]
Publication details: 
Forel's letter: 7 May 1908, Yvorne. Clodd's letter: 4 June 1917, on letterhead of Strafford House, Aldeburgh, Suffolk. Celesia's letter: 15 June 1906, Como. The book: London: Methuen & Co. 1908.
£180.00

The three letters are addressed to the translator of Forel's book, the surgeon and free-thinker Percival Macleod Yearsley (1867-1951). Forel's letter: 4to, 1 p. Twenty lines. In French. Text clear and complete. On browned and chipped high-acidity paper. Laid down on the front pastedown. In the first paragraph he thanks the translator, Macleod Yearsley, for the book, which he praises in fulsome terms. He is sending a copy of his 'Question Sexuelle'.

[ Cuban slave trade, 1856. ] Document in Spanish, signed by both parties: 'D. Domingo Rodriguez' selling 'un negro nombrado Andres' to 'la Sra. Da. Conception de Velasco de la Forre' for 'cuatrocientos pesos'.

Author: 
[ Cuban slave trade, 1856 ]
Publication details: 
'Habana 28 de Octubre de 1856'. [ Havana, Cuba. 28 October 1856.]
£75.00

1p., folio. On aged and worn paper. In top right-hand corner: 'N. 4.' Twelve lines of text, followed by signatures 'Domingo Rodrigz.', 'Conception de Velasco de la Forre' and 'Pose Ma. de la Forre'. Begins: 'D. Domingo Rodriguez vende a la Sra. Da. Conception de Velasco de la Forre, un negro nombrado Andres de oficio calesero y cocinero [ by trade a coachman and cook ], sano y sin tachas [ healthy and without blemishes ]'.

['Black Americana.'] Complete set of four late-Victorian British chromolithographic plates, with stereotyped racist depictions of 'Sambo's Courtship', 'Sambo's Wedding', 'Sambo's First-Born' and 'Sambo's Baby's Christening'.

Author: 
['Black Americana'; nineteenth-century racism; Victorian racist illustration]
Publication details: 
English (each print 'Copyright Entered at Stationers Hall'). Circa 1888.
£280.00

The four plates (each 29 x 23.5 cm) are loose and unframed, in fair condition, aged and worn, with no margins, chipping to the edges, and with the corners cut off at a diagonal. Each title written in pencil in a contemporary hand on the reverse of the print, each with a price of '6d'. The subjects are not depicted in unattractive style, and are certainly not grotesques, but they are shown as 'simple', untroubled individuals, with the usual happy, gleaming brown faces and shiny white teeth.

[Mrs Isabella Hankey, widow of West Indian merchant banker John Peter Hankey.] Signed manuscript 'Bond of Indemnity | Mrs. Hankey to Executors and Trustees of John Peter Hankey Esqr. deceased', referring to 'Sugar Plantations' and 'Negroes Slaves'.

Author: 
Mrs Isabella Hankey, widow of John Peter Hankey (d.1807) of Grenada, West Indian merchant banker [Messrs Thomson Hankey & Co., London bankers; Sir William Alexander]
Publication details: 
[London, England.] 21 July 1814.
£120.00

3pp., folio. Bifolium. In good condition, on lightly aged and worn paper. Signed 'Isabella Hankey' and witnessed by 'John fforster Carey Street'.

Bold signatures of Paul Robeson and his accompanist and arranger, Lawrence Brown, on detached album leaf.

Author: 
Paul Robeson, African American concert singer (bass-baritone), recording artist, athlete and actor AND Lawrence Brown, pianist and arranger.
Bold signatures of Paul Robeson and his accompanist and arranger, Lawrence Brown
Publication details: 
1930
£100.00
Bold signatures of Paul Robeson and his accompanist and arranger, Lawrence Brown

Page detached from an album, 17 x 14cm, slightly foxed, mainly good condition, inscribed Every good wish | Paul Robeson | [Mar?] 1930 | Lawrence Brown. Note from wikipedia: Robeson and his accompanist and arranger Lawrence Brown were the first to bring spirituals to the concert stage; their association lasted through four decades.

Printed Memorandum of Agreement with Anthony Blond Ltd, signed 'Ellen Wright', for the English publication rights of her husband's 'Lawd Today'; with a typed agreement between Blond and Hamilton & Co. for the English paperback rights.

Author: 
Ellen Wright (nee Poplar) (1912-2004), second wife and widow of the American author Richard Wright (1908-60)
Publication details: 
Memorandum, London, 29 June 1964; paperback rights, London, 15 May 1964.
£56.00

The Memorandum is a four-page folio (leaf size roughly fourteen inches by nine and a half) bifolium. In very good condition, lightly creased and folded. It details Mrs Wright's royalties (as 'proprietor'), advance and percentages. The paperback rights agreement consists of four typewritten pages, on four leaves, each roughly thirteen inches by eight, stapled together at the head beneath green tape. Very good, though lightly creased and with some fraying to tape. It is signed by the Hamilton & Co. chairman Joseph and witnessed by his secretary E. M. Holloway.

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