A Few Selections from the Writings of Paul Lindsay Russell

Lake Forest, Ill, 1910. First edition. Very Good. Publisher's plain black cloth. Octavo. 44 pp. Some toning and an ink spot to upper flyleaf. Ink ownership signature, dated 1910, to upper pastedown. A Very Good copy of a rare work of poetry by a obscure Black author.

The introduction explains that Paul Lindsay Russell was born in a "hamlet" in South Carolina in 1890. "As he was only one of a large family of children, his education had been badly neglected. In his early days he had not the opportunity of a regular school education," the introduction reads. He was, however, "a dreamer, and as soon as he learned to read, he had the peculiar ability of writing poetry in his own way." Some of the poems, published when Russell was just twenty, cover the usual poetic fare of love, regret, and religion - but his personality shines through in more lighthearted illustrations of the environment of his youth and in poems that address Black history and culture in the American South. "Hontoon's Bakery Shop," for example, is a tongue-in-cheek description of settling his debt with an angry local shop owner; and "Hog Killin' Day," one of a few poems in the collection written in Black dialect, describes an elaborate five-person effort to cook a family meal. In "De Youngsters ob Today," which is written from the perspective of an elderly person who lived through slavery, Russell reflects on the advancements made by the post-Emancipation generations (citing historically Black colleges like Morris Brown and Knoxville College, the writing of Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Black lawyers and doctors) while cautioning Black youth to remember the spirit of their communities.

This is appears to be Russell's only published work. Not in Blockson, Work, the Library Company's Afro-Americana Collection, nor French's Afro-American Poetry and Drama. OCLC records only three copies: Brown, Lake Forest Library, and the Chicago History Museum. Very Good.