{Association Copy} Daddy Was a Number Runner

New York: Prentice Hall, 1970. Book. Near Fine. Cloth. SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. SCARCE Association Copy, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR at front end page -"to Janet Saxe, Best of Luck Teaching Black Literature. Louise Meriwether April 1972". Louise Meriwether (born1923) is an African-American novelist, essayist, journalist and activist. Daddy Was a Number Runner is her critically acclaimed first book, and the first novel to come out of the Watts Writers' Workshop. Considered an underappreciated classic, it is her fictional account of a year in the life of a 12 year old girl growing up in Harlem during the (truncated) Great Depression. "It risks offending people by taking up such issues such as police brutality, the unemployment situation, the desperation caused by the Depression and the different ways that the Blacks and whites are treated by society." (Ishmael Reed, The New York Times, June 18, 2021 "A Novel From '70 Is Still Resonant"). Janet (Cheatham) Saxe (Bell) is an African-American educator, author and independent scholar who in 1972 was an associate editor of "The Black Scholar". First Edition, First Printing, 1970. The book is Near Fine, crease to cloth at head of spine, in a Very Good dust jacket, wear and chips at edges and folds. Signed copies of any of Meriwether's books are rare in current commerce, and RBH shows no records of any signed copies of this title. Held in 574 libraries worldwide and currently in print, published by Virago Press under the summary "A compelling coming-of-age story set in 1930s Harlem, Daddy was a Number Runner is a seminal text in the African-American canon of literature.". (Inventory #: 009143)