ROLL, JORDAN ROLL. The Text by Julia Peterkin. The Photographic Studies by Doris Ulmann. [Limited Edition, Signed.]

New York: Robert O. Ballou, [1933]. 341 pages. 90 full-page, hand-pulled photogravures (including the frontispiece, all reckoned in the pagination). Lacking the extra, laid-in photogravure, being a duplicate of one of the images in the book, that is found with most copies. Early full vellum with gilt spine and cover lettering and gilt centerpiece on the front cover. 29 x 22 cm. Near fine. The photogravures are all in excellent condition. The text shows some very faint offsetting from the plates throughout, and a half dozen or so of the text pages show moderate foxing. Tissue guards, laid-in throughout, appear to be recent replacements. Housed in a plain linen slipcase, evidently of the same vintage as the binding. FIRST EDITION. #44 of 350 COPIES SIGNED BY JULIA PETERKIN AND DORIS ULMANN. One of the most celebrated American photobooks, “Roll, Jordan Roll “provides a stunning portrait of rural African American life in the low country of South Carolina. Most of the photographs were taken at Lane Syne, the plantation home of author, Julia Mood Peterkin (1880-1961), located near Fort Motte in Calhoun County. Peterkin had previously published “Green Thursday“ (1924), a collection of short stories, “Black April“ (1927), her bestselling first novel, and “Scarlet Sister Mary“ (1928), for which she won the Pulitzer Prize. Her last novel, “Bright Skin“ appeared in 1932. During her short career, she garnered praise from both whites and influential blacks for her sympathetic depictions of African Americans and her rendering of the Gullah dialect. A wealthy New Yorker, Doris Ulmann (1882-1934) studied photography with Clarence H. White, a former colleague of Alfred Stieglitz. She was admired for her technical virtuosity and her photographs were exhibited at prominent studios in New York and other major cities. Much of her early work consisted of portrait photography of notable members of society, including several series on physicians and prominent literary editors. However, her focus soon shifted to studies of rural America, including Shakers and other religious sects, traditional Appalachian craftspeople and musicians, and Native American communities in North Carolina. While she continued to live in New York, where she had an apartment and studio on Park Avenue, Ulmann traveled widely for her work. In the spring of 1929, during one of her trips to the South, she met Julia Peterkin, and the pair quickly formed a deep and lasting friendship. Ulmann’s visits to Lane Syne solidified her commitment to documenting African American life and provided her with a rich source of subject matter. The resulting collaboration between author and photographer, “Roll, Jordan Roll“, was first issued in a trade edition in December 1933 and received widespread critical acclaim. James Weldon Johnson wrote that ““Roll, Jordan Roll“ is the most beautiful and charming book about plantation Negroes of the deep South I that I know of. Doris Ulmann’s photographs alone will work a great change in the general ideas about the Southern rural Negro.” –qt. in Jacobs, “The Life and Photography of Doris Ulmann“, p. 126. However, the reproductions of the photographs in the trade edition were disappointing, to Ulmann as much as anyone. This was rectified the following month with the issue of this sumptuous, limited edition, which offered a larger format, text finely printed in letterpress on wove paper, and most importantly, photogravures that did justice to Ulmann’s camera work. Andrew Roth writes, “Ullman’s soft-focus photos -- rendered as tactile as charcoal drawings in the superb gravure reproductions here -- straddle Pictorialism and Modernism even as they appear to dissolve into memory” --”The Book of 101 Books : Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century“, p. 78. IN ADDITION TO THE SUPERB QUALITY OF THE REPRODUCTIONS, THE LIMITED EDITION ALSO OFFERED TWENTY IMAGES THAT DID NOT APPEAR IN THE TRADE EDITION. The original publisher's binding for the deluxe edition was half cloth over paper-covered boards with the spine lettered in gilt, a blind-stamped centerpiece on the front cover depicting an African American woman in profile, and the publisher’s name in blind on the rear cover. On the present handmade vellum binding, the spine is gilt-lettered in a different typeface, the publisher’s name is omitted from the rear cover, and the front cover is prominently lettered in gilt. The original centerpiece portrait from the publisher’s binding is closely replicated, but it is here superbly hand-tooled in gilt. WE HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO FIND ANY RECORD, IN TRADE OR INSTITUTIONAL CATALOGS, OF COPIES WITH A SIMILAR BINDING, AND IT IS POSSIBLY UNIQUE. An estimable copy of this important work in an extraordinary custom binding. Turnbull V, p. 350.�