Roll Jordan Roll

Julia Peterkin 

Doris Ulmann Photographer

Roll Jordan Roll. Julia Peterkin and Doris Ulmann Photographer. New York. Robert O. Ballou. 1933. SECOND printing in January 1934. Hardcover. With the very scarce pictorial dust jacket. Very good in a Good plus dust jacket. The cloth is blue used by Ballou, the book's original publisher, which went bankrupt in 1934 and was bought out by Bobbs-Merrill who then used red cloth. 70 photo gravure illustrations by Doris Ulmann.

Ulmann's photographs in the Pictorialist Modernist mode capture the lives of former slaves and their progeny on a South Carolina plantation along the Gullah coast which still magically evokes a bygone world. Roth, Book of 101 Books, p. 78-79.

Very good in a Good plus dust jacket. Blue cloth. The boards are in excellent bright condition. Very light wear as if it sat on a shelf. The best copy seen to date. Internally, the pages and photographs in excellent condition with the exception of the first free endpaper which has a small repaired tear to the bottom edge. The entire text block, which begins on page 9, and all plates would grade very good plus to fine, tight, unmarked, and unfoxed. Superlative photographs. DJ lightly soiled and rubbed w/ moderate  wear and some small tears and chips to the top and bottom of the spine as well as some creasing. Light chipping to the corners. Not price clipped.

A very attractive copy with the uncommon scarce dust jacket. Thick octavo, 251 pages. A legendary collaboration of Julia Peterkin's empathetic text and Doris Ulmann's moving photographs.  

Scarce. Charming. Second printing. With the dust jacket.