Against the Tide is a remarkable feat of scholarship, research, and interpretation. I have encountered nothing quite like it in all of my researches. Its publication is a tribute to the spirit of transcendence and the determination to endure, which persons of African descent have been exhibiting on this continent for four centuries. -- Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University, from his Foreword to the exhibition catalogue.

Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, Inc. is pleased to announce the opening of its latest exhibition, "Against the Tide: African Americana, 1711-1987." The collection, offering books, letters, manuscript materials and ephemera of literary and historical value to the development of the African-American identity, opens mid-February and will be on display for five weeks.

The accompanying exhibition catalogue, Against the Tide: Commentaries on a Collection of African Americana, 1711-1987, was written by Randy F. Weinstein. Weinstein details the history and significance of the collection in what Gates calls "a bibliographical history of writings by and about African Americans...replete with well-researched and informative annotations...fascinating facts and anecdotes about the people and events that served to shape the black American past." The catalogue narrates the African-American experience through three hundred works, presenting unique copies of foundational materials, like W.E.B. Du Bois.s 1935 Black Reconstruction -- inscribed by NAACP Executive Secretary Walter White to Eleanor Roosevelt, as well as artifacts documenting the daily minutiae of the African-American identity as it developed over the past three centuries. Exhibition highlights include a cache of letters written between members of a black Virgin-ian family, before and after emancipation; Paul Robeson's 1943 Theatre Guild contract to perform the lead role in Othello; a manuscript for James Baldwin's Another Country, along with unpublished correspondence to the dedicatee about his controversial 1962 novel, to name just a few. But as eminent African-American literature scholar Charles Blockson, notes, "the rarities listed within [Against the Tide] are many, the research is almost overwhelming and the description of the items thrills the heart and soul as it does the mind."

Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, Inc. provides 18th, 19th and 20th century works of literary and historical importance to collectors and research institutions world-wide. Horowitz maintains his primary retail gallery in Manhattan, where recent exhibitions have included collections of books, mauscript materials and ephemera by and relating to James Joyce, and FDR. His East Hampton gallery, whose primary focus is art and photography, curates exhibitions of such contemporary artists as Jack Youngerman and Aaron Siskind.

Exhibition dates: February 14 through March 27, 1997

Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 11-5.

Against the Tide: Commentaries on a Collection of African Americana 1711-1987 is available through GHB at $75.