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DESCRIPTION: Small oblong folio 14 1/8 W x 11 3/4 H (360 x 298 mm). No. 30 of 50 copies of the Special Edition, total edition of 400 copies. Printed letterpress on Biblio, mould-made in Germany. Illustrated with ten woodcuts, seven full page by Martin Puryear. The paper for the woodcut illustrations is Kitakata, handmade in Japan. The text is printed on a Miller TW cylinder press; the woodblocks were printed on a Vandercook Universal III proofing press. Full leather binding with titling on both covers and spine blind stamped in black. Housed in a wooden slipcase designed and made in Martin Puryear's studio, composed of African wenge, Swiss pear, American Walnut, and sugar maple woods, selected to illustrate the range of skin tone color amongst African-Americans. Signed in the colophon by Martin Puryear. Book is protected with a dust wrapper of neutral glassine paper which is then covered by a sturdier clear archival Grafix Dura Lar dust wrapper. IMPORTANT NOTE: THE SEPARATE PORTFOLIO OF SEVEN WOODCUT ILLUSTRATIONS SIGNED BY MARTIN PURYEAR IS NOT INCLUDED.______ CONDITION: Handmade wooden slipcase and full leather binding in fine condition. Small area of damp-staining to the lower right corner of the text block, extending into a small corner of two Puryear illustrations and one text page corner - all shown in detail on final four photographs. Remaining text pages and illustrations in fine condition._____ DISCUSSION: Jean Toomer's 'Cane' is one of the most important and original literary works to come out of the Harlem Renaissance (1918-1935), blending poetry, prose and drama to depict the African American experience in multiple ways. It moves fluidly between the rural South and urban North, reflecting the Great Migration. The experimental approach incorporating numerous literary forms makes this a Modernist masterpiece. Martin Puryear is an important African American artist with his talents extending across several genre including printmaking, drawing and sculpture. In particular, his refined handmade constructions in wood using traditional techniques are especially prized as evidenced by the innovative and beautiful wooden slipcase. His full-page abstract woodblock prints are his response to the novel's black female characters and each woodcut is so named.______ NOTE: This is a large heavy item requiring extensive care in packing and will require additional funds for domestic UPS shipping. Estimated international shipping cost with tracking to the United Kingdom and Europe is $125.

First edition, first printing of the classic Harlem Renaissance novel. Extremely rare, signed by Jean Toomer and inscribed to a former owner on the front free endpaper, "To Fay De Frantz with warm regards for one who feels so warmly about this book and its author [signed] Jean Toomer". Bound in publisher's buff cloth stamped in yellow and black; lacking the scarce dust jacket. Very Good with light lean to binding, light soiling and wear to cloth. Pages tanned, small tear and crease to the top of the front free endpaper, several margins show chips or short mended tears at the fore edge. Glue repair to hinge at rear pastedown and evidence of removal of an old bookseller ticket with offsetting to the rear free endpaper. The first appearance of a classic of modern American fiction and pinnacle of the Harlem Renaissance. In his foreword Waldo Frank dubs it "a harbinger of the South's literary maturity: of its emergence from the obsession put upon its mind by the unending racial crisis—an obsession from which writers have made their indirect escape through sentimentalism, exoticism, polemic, ‘problem' fiction, and moral melodrama. It marks the dawn of direct and unafraid creation." Signed copies are incredibly scarce.