Flashes from the Dark. With Sketch of the Author by Louis Le Brocquy. Signed Limited Edition, one of 162 copies (this copy unnumbered). Pages, 45. Dublin: Three Candles Press, 1941. Black cloth with illustration and line rules stamped in gold, pattern repeated on d.j. Light fraying to jacket, otherwise a very good copy. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on title page, with his calling card, signed, tipped in beneath his portrait sketch. First edition of the author’s only volume of poetry (French’s Afro-American Poetry and Drama, 1760-1975). Illustrated with frontispiece, reproducing a portrait sketch of Ferdinand Levy by Louis Le Brocquy). The following biography appears on the trade issue: ‘Mr. Ferdinand Levy is a medical student in Trinity College, Dublin. He was born in Jamaica, British West Indies, and is of African descent. He spent a number of years in New York and in Washington, in pursuit of his academic studies. As may be gleaned from a number of his poems in this volume, he knows Harlem intimately. Mr. Levy first became interested in literature around 1928/9 — a period commonly referred to as the Negro Renaissance. During this period he was closely connected with the Gumby Book Studio Group, a young clique of enthusiasts who were determined to play their part in helping to break the traditional inferior status of the Negro in American poetry.’