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First edition, first printing. 240 pp. 8vo. Inscribed on the ffep: "For Bill and Alice on my first (and very happy) visit to your home. Sincerely, Langston. Phoenix, June 4-5, 1953." Alice Doyle Mahoney, niece of Noël Sullivan, first met Langston Hughes at gatherings at her uncle s home at Hollow Hills Farm in Carmel, California, where Sullivan had built a one-room cottage for Hughes to stay. Hughes visited the Mahoneys at their Phoenix home in June 1953. "A grove of orange tress glittered and green leaves crowded to the window of his room where he stayed for a few days of real summer sun …. On a small ranch within the city limits, the Mahoneys and their lively young children lived what seemed to Langston a blissfully idyllic life, with a brood of Arabian horses and playful dogs and an open generous approach to life such gone (be-bop) Mahoneys! he wrote in admiration. I love them. " (Rampersad, vol. II, p. 227). Hughes met Noël Sullivan in May 1932 while on a lecture tour, and the two developed a very close friendship. "The man and all he stood for endeared him to Hughes, and for a quarter of a century he was the poet's most trusted confidant. [.] as close a friend as any relative Hughes ever had." (Berry, Faith, Before & Beyond Harlem: A Biography of Langston Hughes, p. 149-150). This was a two-way street, as "Hughes s immediate impact on Noël Sullivan was…dramatic" (Rampersad, The Life of Langston Hughes, Vol. I, p. 239). Sullivan helped sustain Hughes with occasional financial gifts, he hosted him on most of his visits to California, often gave Hughes the use of his farm in Carmel, where Hughes wrote his first collection of short stories, The Ways of White Folks (1934), which was dedicated to Sullivan. Publisher's printed and laminated paper covered boards. Some minor delamination and rubbing around the edges. Seller Inventory # 369370
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Bibliographic Details
Title: Simple Takes a Wife
Publisher: Simon and Schuster, New York
Publication Date: 1953
Binding: 240 pp. 8vo
Signed: Signed by Author(s)
Edition: First edition, first printing.
