Three notable books, the product of the year 1915, are deserving of special mention. They are all devoted to Negroes of the Eighteenth Century, and are the outcome of the activities, the enterprise and the research of the Twentieth Century, and that by white Americans. The titles are (1) "Phillis Wheatley (Phillis Peters) Poems and Letters: First Collected Edition," edited by Charles Fred Heartman, with an appreciation by Arthur A. Schomburg, 112 pages. Ben Day paper, 50 on Fabriano hand-made paper, and 10 on Japan vellum.
(2) "Phillis Wheatley (Phillis Peters): A Critical Attempt and a Bibliography of Her Writings," by Charles Fred Heartman; 99 copies of this were printed by the author on Alexandra Japan paper. There are 50 pages in this bibliography, from which we learn that there are 43 titles of different editions of Phillis Wheatley's poems. The forty-third is that of six broadsides relating to Phillis Wheatley, with portrait and fac-simile of her handwritings; 25 copies of this were printed for the same publisher. They consist of four pages and eight productions on eight leaves.
The last (3) item is certainly the most interesting. It flashes the name of Jupiter Hammon, a Negro belonging to Joseph Lloyd, of Queen's Village, on Long Island, now in Hartford. The title is "Jupiter Hammon: American Negro Poet. Selections From His Writings and a Bibliography." By Oscar Wegelin, with five fac-similes; 99 copies were printed for Charles Fred Heartman, New York, 1915. Jupiter Hammon was the first member of his race to write and publish poetry in this country. One of his poems was printed before Phillis Wheatley had written her first poem.
This bibliography is slightly connected with that of books issued before the present year, such as "Negro Culture in West Africa," by George W. Ellis, 290 pages; "The Haitian Revolution From 1791 to 1804," by T. G. Steward, 292 pages; "The Facts of Reconstruction," by John R. Lynch, 326 pages; "Out of the House of Bondage," by Kelly Miller, and "The Negro in American History," by John W. Cromwell, 296 pp. which have found places in some of the principal public libraries of the country.
"Redder Blood," by William M. Ashby, published by the Neale Publishing Company, is described as a novel which, written in literary English and not in the jargon known as Negro dialect; a story told for the sake of the story and not a treatise under disguise. Its author, a Negro, is a graduate of Yale College.
Transcriber's Note
Original spelling varieties have been maintained; footnotes were renumbered.
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO ACADEMY. (THE AMERICAN NEGRO ACADEMY. OCCASIONAL PAPERS, NO. 18-19.) ***