HUGHES, Langston (1901-1967). Simple Speaks His Mind. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1950.

8vo. Original slate blue cloth, top edge stained blue, others uncut (slight rubbing to extremities); publisher's dust jacket (slight chipping and a few short tears, some toning). Provenance: Noël Sullivan (presentation inscription); by descent to present owner.

FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED PRIOR TO THE DATE OF PUBLICATION BY HUGHES TO SULLIVAN: “For Noel – whose wonderful sense of humor brightens our world – Affectionately, Langston. New York, April 10, 1950.” With publisher’s comment card laid in.

Simple Speaks His Mind was published on April 14, 1950. By its publication day, over 14,000 copies had been sold; unfortunately, for Hughes’s royalties, Simon and Schuster had made the unconventional decision to release both the hard-cover and paperback editions simultaneously, and the majority of the sales were for paperback copies. “Simple Speaks His Mind was the best received of all the books Hughes had ever published. Typical was [Carl] Van Vechten’s remark in his New York Times review that it was ‘better than a dozen vast and weighty and piously pompous studies in race relations…. The brilliance of this loving portrait of a Harlem philosopher struck many black readers and unprecedented; to the novelist William Gardner Smith, Simple was ‘the voice of the American Negro as few have heard him speak;” (Rampersad, Life, Vol. II, p.178-9).


Fine African Americana from the Collections of Noël Sullivan & William P. and Alice D. Mahoney