Trumpet to the World

New York: Reynal & Hitchcock. Very Good+ in Very Good dj. (c.1946). First Edition. Hardcover. [modest shelfwear to bottom edges, no other significant wear, one-time owner's name in blue ink at top of front endpaper; the jacket is lightly soiled, with some miscellaneous edgewear]. The author's debut novel, about a "virile, intelligent, sensitive [man] whose greatest misfortune was that he had been born with a black skin and so knew intimately what it was to live in constant fear of persecution and physical violence"; more specifically, it's about a young black soldier in an interracial marriage. Given that the author was quite young (just 22 at the time, per the jacket blurb), fresh out of the Army, and very white, his choice of subject has a bit of a "Black Like Me" vibe to it, although his sincerity can't be doubted. "I am tremendously interested in what goes on in the world, specially with regard to racial problems," he writes, and "should like to spend my life writing on behalf of progressive causes." Harris went on to a distinguished career as an educator and a novelist, in the latter capacity being best-known for his quartet of baseball-themed "Henry Wiggen" novels, including "Bang the Drum Slowly." .