A Different Drummer
Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1962.
First edition, first printing. Signed by William Melvin Kelley on the front free endpaper with a lengthy, very personal inscription to Elizabeth Campbell, who was the second wife of photographer Gordon Parks, "6/14/62 For Liz:-- You must know, Skinny, that I'm pulling for you, that I wish you success in all things that you decide to do. All that you can wish or hope for is that the people you love get a little lucky, that they make the right guesses and choices. I'm sorry that's all I can give you. Love, [signed] Kelley." According to a relative of the author's this inscription was on the day of Campbell and Parks' wedding. Campbell and Kelley had grown up together, and her marrying Parks had come as a surprise.
Kelley didn't sign many books.
[xii], 223 pp. Original cloth, spine lettered in black. Near Fine with a little wear to head, very slight lean, endpapers slightly foxed, pages toned, in a Very Good+ unclipped dust jacket with rubbing along its edges, hint of soiling, wear at extremities. The African American author's acclaimed debut novel. After early success he became forgotten and all his work was out-of-print for many years; he was dubbed "The Lost Giant of American Literature" in a 2018 New Yorker piece in the midst of a revival of interest in his work, following topical notoriety for having coined the term "woke." Rare as a first edition, let alone with such a powerful inscription.
Price: $5,000.00