HUGHES, Langston, translator. – ROUMAIN, Jacques. Masters of the Dew. A Novel of Haiti. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1947.

8vo. Original blue cloth (endleaves toned); publisher's dust jacket (some chipping and toning). Provenance: Noël Sullivan (presentation inscription); by descent to present owner.

FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED IN THE MONTH OF PUBLICATION BY HUGHES TO SULLIVAN: “For Noel – Sincerely, Langston. New York, June, 1947.”

Hughes and Mercer Cook translated Jacque Roumain’s Masters of the Dew. “Working diligently with his Haitian biographer, René Piquion, Langston scanned every line of both the original novel and Cook’s draft in order to achieve Roumain’s folk-poetic rhythms and to avoid a long glossary of foreign terms; ‘I have also tried to simplify a bit the peasant language, keeping at the same time its archaic and bold quality’” (Rampersad, Life, Vol. II, p.119). The work received positive reviews, with the New York Times calling the work “a vivid, simple, lyric English that seems right for the peculiar excellences of Roumain’s work.”


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