[PHOTOBOOK]
DeCARAVA, ROY & HUGHES, LANGSTON. The Sweet Flypaper Of Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1955. Stated first printing with a page-long inscription on the front blank in green ink from Hughes to the author Kay Boyle (see note). Publisher's cloth backed boards, in original pictorial dust jacket with price present. 7 1/8 x 4 3/4 inches (18 x 12 cm); 98 pp., photographically illustrated. Small loss to corner of p. 95, a fine example of the dust jacket with small chips at spine tips and along spine fold, a faint spot visible in the eye on the front panel.
Hughes and DeCarava's important photographically illustrated chronicle of Harlem, inscribed by Hughes to author Kay Boyle during the period of her McCarthy blacklisting. Hughes writes "Especially for Kay Boyle-on a happy meeting with Marie Leifer today. Sincerely, Langston Hughes/New York, April 12, 1959." Important inscribed copies of this title in jacket are rare. Provenance: Between the Covers Rare Books. Roth 138; Parr/Badger I 242; Hasselblad 160; Auer 357.