[Memorial Volume]: Preludes of Poetry and Music

First edition. With a biographical introduction. Tall octavo. Illustrated with plates. Gilt cloth and papercovered boards, topedges unopened. Binding with light tanning and a bit of soil, near fine. A nicely printed memorial volume for Irene Curtis, who was born in Texas; grew up in the town of Washington, Louisiana; and moved to Chicago when she was 13. She graduated from Smith college in 1912. The collection prints poems (over half of which are Black dialect poems) and several pieces of music for which Curtis provided the musical score. Lyrics for the pieces are by Virginia Flagg, Hildegarde Hoyt, and James Whitcomb Riley; "Witches Dance" and " Minuet" are musical pieces by Curtis, and the poorly named "The Darkey Pastoral" with words and music by Curtis. The bizarre inclusion of so many dialect pieces is explained thus in the introductory note: (of her childhood in Louisiana) "This life in the South made a deep impression upon her sensitive nature. It was certainly this life that familiarized her with the negro mode of thought and expression and made the writing of dialect poems so natural to her when in later years she began to voice these childhood impressions." A nicely produced but problematic volume of original verse and music.…