Essentials Signed First by Jean Toomer (1 results)
More imagesLanguage: English
Published by Lakeside Press, Chicago 1931
- Hardcover
- First Edition
- Signed
Seller: Rokke Rare Books, Minneapolis, U.S.A.Rokke Rare Books
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used - Very good
£ 572.39
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Add to basketEssentials - Jean Toomer Signed First Edition From the estate of Jean Toomer and Margery Latimer's Daughter 1931 Essentials by Jean Toomer Definitions and Aphorisms, Private Edition, Designed and Printed at the Lakeside Press, Chicago 1931, signed and numbered (#44/1000) on the limitation page by Toomer. After the publication of… Cane, Toomer pushed aside literary pursuits to devote himself to spiritual mysticism, particularly the teachings of the Russian Armenian mystic George Gurdjieff who promoted individual development through discipline of the mind, body, and emotions. Toomer would visit and learn from Gurdjieff at his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at Fontainebleau, France in 1924. Upon his return he would conduct a series of lectures and demonstrations among the Black literati in Harlem, eventually build a community of followers in Chicago, and dream about building his own institute modeled after Gurdjieff's in America. Later he would become involved with Quakerism, Jungian psychoanalysis, the psychic Edgar Cayce, and even L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics (now morphed into the Church of Scientology) "Essentials was an attempt to sum up all wisdom and experience - the universe according to Jean Toomer - in a collection of aphorisms. Gurdjieff used this technique at Fontainebleau, where his favorite homilies decorated the Study House." The resulting work was deemed unpublishable, leading Toomer to start his own publishing firm. 1000 copies of Essentials were printed but sales were poor. Black cloth, decorative paper labels to spine and front board, pp. [x], 64, [2]; Very good condition, lacking jacket, some fading to spine and spine label, just a touch of foxing to rear endpaper. [Kerman, C. E., Eldridge, R. The Lives of Jean Toomer A Hunger for Wholeness. Louisiana State University Press, 1987].
