The Sport of the Gods

Clean, unmarked interior except for a former owner label to the inside front cover and former owner stamps to the title page and inside back cover. Front hinge has been repaired with tape. There is some minor shelf-wear to the cover, as well as some subtle rubbing due to a printing error. Introduction by Kenny J. Williams. Best known as a poet (Maya Angelou alluded to his poem, Sympathy, when titling I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings), Dunbar published this, his final novel, in 1902, several years before his death at 33. The book anticipates the Harlem Renaissance by telling the tale of the Hamilton family, who flees the south for New York and devolves into debauchery after their father is wrongly imprisoned by a racist justice system. 'There is no poet, black or nonblack, who measures his achievement,' Nikki Giovanni writes of Dunbar. 'Even today. He wanted to be a writer and he wrote.' 195 pp.