Rachel: A Play in Three Acts by Grimke, Angelina W - 1920

Boston: The Cornhill Company, 1920. First edition. Near Fine. Octavo collates complete: 96, [8 blank]. Original cloth backed boards with gilt to spine and cover. Only the slightest touch of shelfwear to front board and extremities of spine; light sunning along the foot of the front board. Internally clean and tight. An exceptional copy of this history-making drama, which has only come to auction three times.

Rachel, hailed as the first play produced and published by an African American woman, was a critical "attempt to use the state...in order to enlighten the American people relating to the lamentable condition of ten millions of Colored citizens of the free republic" (NAACP). Written by the queer, biracial activist Angelina W. Grimke -- the great niece of the famed abolitionist Angelina E. Grimke -- the play emphasized how the terrors and realities of lynching affected Black families and their core identities. Following the titular protagonist, an educated young woman planning for her future, the audience witnesses how the violent loss of men in her community shapes Rachel's approach to love, marriage, and children. While she initially believes that she can confront and combat racism, the systems around her prove insurmountable; and Rachel ultimately withdraws into isolation with the futile hope of protecting her own adopted child. Drawing on her own identity as the granddaughter of a slave owner and a slave, in addition to being the descendant of one of the most outspoken intersectional feminists in the US, Grimke was positioned to critique U.S. race relations at a time when the country sat poised between Emancipation and the Civil Rights Movement. An exceptionally scarce and important play, calling on all audience members (but white women in particular) to empathize with Black women and join the fight against systemic racism. Near Fine.