The Library of Stephen J. Farber

8vo. Photographic illustrations by Roy DeCarava. Original photographic wrappers (extremities toned, light rubbing to joints, front joint discretely reattached); folding case. Provenance: Stella Holt (1899-1967), American theater producer (presentation inscription).

FIRST EDITION, wrappers issue (preferred), with text beginning on the front wrapper and continuing on p.3. PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED IN THE YEAR OF PUBLICATION BY HUGHES TO HIS CLOSE FRIEND, RENOWNED THEATRICAL PRODUCER STELLA HOLT, on the inside front cover: "Especially for Stella Holt, with thanks for so many fine plays, sincerely, Langston Hughes, New York, New York, Nov. 30, 1955."

Stella Holt was "one of the first producers to use integrated casts" (New York Times). In her 1965 production of Hughes' Prodigal Son, Holt and Hughes brought in African American playwright Vinnette Carroll as director. "Holt turned Hughes' gospel drama into 'a swinging dance pantomime,' as he marveled, 'a novel concoction I never dreamed of—but a delightful one'... 'Stella was devoted to Langston,' Vinnette Carroll recalled'" (Rampersad, Life of Langston Hughes II:391-2). Holt was also behind the successful 1957 Broadway production of Hughes' Simply Heavenly. She died three months after Hughes in 1967.

The Sweet Flypaper of Life appeared in November 1955, just as Hughes was completing the manuscript for his autobiography, I Wonder as I Wander. The critical reception of the work was positive: "No book by Hughes was ever greeted so rhapsodically.... Calling it 'a delicate and lovely fiction-document of life in Harlem,' the New York Times praised its 'astonishing verisimilitude'" (Rampersad, Life, Vol. II, p.249). For his part, Roy DeCarava "looked at their book and almost burst into tears.....[expecting] a big glossy book with [his] photographs lavishly laid out," but the critical reception brought him around (ibid., p249). The Sweet Flypaper of Life remains "one of the most successful collaborations between a great writer and a great photographer ever published" (101 Books, pp.138-9). Auer, p.357; The Photobook, vol. I, p. 242 ("A publishing success and... an important step forward").