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D

Dandridge, Raymond Garfield
(1882–1930)
A poet from Cincinnati who overcame severe phys-
ical handicaps and paralysis to make a name for
himself as a poet and critic. The literary editor for
the Cincinnati Journal,he published three volumes
of poetry, two of which appeared in the most vi-
brant years of the Harlem Renaissance. THEPOET
ANDOTHERPOEMSwas published in 1920; ZALKA
PEETRUZA ANDOTHERPOEMSappeared in 1928.
In 1922 five Dandridge poems were selected
for inclusion in JAMESWELDONJOHNSON’s THE
BOOK OFAMERICANNEGROPOETRY, the most
comprehensive survey of works by African-Ameri-
can poets. According to the biographical profile
that preceded the five Dandridge poems included
in Johnson’s anthology, Dandridge wrote most of
his poems while confined to his bed. A number of
his poems, including “ ’Ittle Touzle Head,” “Sprin’
Fevah,” and “De Drum Majah” were dialect
poems, works inspired by his appreciation for the
dialect compositions of Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Bibliography
Johnson, James Weldon. The Book of American Negro Po-
etry.New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922.

Dark Princess W. E. B. DuBois(1928)
W. E. B. DUBOISdescribed his second novel, Dark
Princess,as “a romance with a message” and “a
story of the great movement of the darker races for
self-expression and self-determination.” Published
by HARCOURT,BRACE&COMPANYin April 1928,

the novel was priced at $2 per copy and provided

him with an advance of $500.

The book, which eventually sold 4,500 of the

5,000 copies printed initially, did not sell briskly. As

historian Herbert Aptheker notes, biannual state-

ments confirm that the average number of books

purchased during each six-month period between

1930 and 1933 was 40 copies (Aptheker, 20). The

book was reviewed widely and signaled DuBois’s im-

portance as much as the general initial interest in

reading a novel by the esteemed and scholarly editor

of THECRISIS.Writing for the Denver-based Rocky

Mountain News,George Burns described the novel as

“a searching exposition of that age-old cry of man for

an answer to life, not alone of the dominating white

man, but of the man who not only must solve the

forces of life, but also must contend with the restric-

tions imposed on him by fellow human beings”

(Aptheker, 22). The NEWYORKTIMESsuggested

that although the plot was “flamboyant and uncon-

vincing” there was “real meat in the Dark Princess

and such proof of the author’s power that it seems a

pity he is not using his talent to show the natural

ability of the colored man or his nobility of character,

as in Porgy,rather than to dwell, oversensitively, on

social injustices which are inevitable in any period of

racial transition and development—of white or

black” (Aptheker, 25). The New Republicreviewer

challenged the suggestion articulated in the New

York Times,however, suggesting that “[i]t is worth

noting that this author is one of the few who can

write about minority and ‘queer’ races as if they were

men rather than types. He is conscious of the indi-

vidual as the individual is of himself” (Aptheker, 24).