W. E. B. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1940). 8vo., salmon cloth lettered in white with dust jacket. First edition.

A presentation copy, inscribed: “For Ira Reid from W. E. B. Du Bois – 6 Sept. 1940,” on the front free endpaper. An extraordinary association copy.

Du Bois valued Ira De A. Reid’s opinion. He asked his esteemed colleague in the sociology department at Atlanta University to read Dusk for Dawn in manuscript (seven months before its publication – the date Du Bois inscribed this copy to Reid). Du Bois may have incorporated Reid’s insightful, probing comments into Dusk for Dawn and posthumously published Autobiography. At the close of Dusk for Dawn, after acknowledging Reid for organizing his seventieth birthday celebration, Du Bois conjectured: “I have loved a fight and I have realized that Love is God and Work is His prophet.”