FREE JOE and Other Georgian Sketches

1887. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1887. 12 pp undated ads. Original reddish-brown cloth decorated in pink and green.

First Edition of Harris's fourth book, a collection of five tales of the South. Harris's wife was later to say that the story "Free Joe and the Rest of the World" was his favorite among all the tales he had written: "Harris provides a portrait of Joe, an African American freedman living in the town of Hillsborough, Georgia in 1860, who finds himself isolated from any community due to his ill-defined social position between enslaved blacks and poor whites. The slave community rejects him out of envy for his freedom, and the poor white community only grudgingly acknowledges his humanity." [UNC]. This volume was once sought as the very first of Margaret Armstrong's 270+ decorative bindings, but it has since been decided that it was not in fact done by her. Nonetheless it is an attractively-bound book, and this is a near-fine copy (just a touch of wear at the ends of the spine). Blanck 7114; see Gullans & Espey p. 91.