Dark Laughter

New York: Boni & Liveright, September 1925. First Edition. Cloth . Good/Fair. First trade edition in scarce dust jacket. NOT price clipped. One & 1/2 inch chip top of spine. One inch deep damp stain across almost entire back jacket panel. Tape 'repair' to rear flap top edge tear visible jacket verso. Closed tear to front fold happily with no tape attempts at fixing the problem. Four small chips to corners & top edge. 1/8th inch x 1/2 inch chip bottom of spine. Black cloth boards with faded yellow lettering front board & spine. Grey smudges especially visible in good light. Slanted spine. Binding pulled at top but remains solid. Cracked gutters at end pages front & back are tender but intact. On these end pages the beautiful G.T. Hartmann black on yellow illustrations of smiling, banjo playing African Americans will doubtless cause discomfort to many modern observers. This will be further enhanced by at least one line from the jacket blurb: 'In it are lazy, dancing negroes...' Likewise, it is worth mentioning that Anderson only best selling novel -- heavily influenced by James Joyce then recent Ulysses -- has in the last 50 years fallen deeply out of favor with credits, not for racial insensitivity, but because of its supposed pretentiousness. I have always thought Anderson's attempt at an American Ulysses to be quite good. Not quite so brilliant as his American Dubliners, Winesburg Ohio, but good enough to include among my favorite English language novels of the 20th century. I included Dark Laughter on my own 99 Novels, 20 years ago. And so it remains today.