O Canaan!: A Novel
New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1939. First printing. Cloth hardcover. [viii], 311 pages. Very good in a very good dust jacket. Cloth over boards with spine titled and ruled in gilt, blind-stamped vignette to upper board, and light blue topstain. Binding shows a bid of fading to cloth along spine and board edges. Prior owner name and contemporaneous date penned on front free endpaper, small circular stamp at top fore corner of front free endpaper. Jacket has minor edge wear, a couple of closed tears along joint folds, a touch of fading to spine. There is a .5" square loss to surface layer of jacket from apparent sticker removal.
Scarce second novel by African American writer and Maryland native Waters Turpin. The story vividly captures the beginnings of the Great Migration of Black labor from southern farms to northern factories which were war-hungry for workers.
Turpin was an educator, novelist, playwright, and critic in the early to mid-20th century. He was driven to write by the political and socio-economic plight of his race, and all three of his novels are quite scarce. Turpin was a native of Maryland's Eastern Shore.
Item #863
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