THIS BOOK HAS BEEN SOLD
BLACK BAGDAD
The Arabian Nights Adventures of a Marine Captain in Haiti
John H. Craige
Minton, Balch & Company,
NY, 1933. VG+/VG. Second Impression (April 1933). A very nice
copy of the original Minton, Balch & Company edition, published within
weeks of the first edition. Jacket has minor flaws only (small chips
& tears, and some darkening to spine, but quite clean overall). Jacket
is in mylar protector. Book itself is bright & tight with no visible
wear. This was one of the first books to bring voodoo to the attention
of the outer world. DJ BLURB (ca. 1933): "No one has seen Haiti more
intimately than Capt Craige of the U.S. Marine Corps. For a number of
years he was loaned to the Haitian Government and served as a white
officer of the black troops of that republic. His first duty was in a
wild & mountainous interior district nearly half as large as the State
of New Jersey. Here the inhabitants shuffled on the sides of their
feet. Some of them had peanut-heads and could not straighten their
knee-joints. Captain Craige learned their language, on which he is an
authority. He went to their dances, attended their funerals, studied
their weird, primitive religion,-- the voodoo. The natives called him
Papa Blanc, White Father. Then he was called to take charge of the
Police Force of Port au Prince, capital of Haiti. He found the city a
black Bagdad full of happenings & tales as fantastic, exciting &
beautiful as any Scheherazade related of the days of Haroun al
Raschid. Voodoo rites, cannibalism, black magic, *wangas* were all
part of his daily routine. He tells the story in distinguished prose
that carries the reader breathless from the opening paragraph to the
last sentence. That a Marine officer could write such a book is
remarkable, but Captain Craige is a remarkable man. In his youth he
studied divinity and is acquainted with the classical tongues as well
as several of the languages of western Europe. His adult life as
described in a "Profile" in the New Yorker sounds like the
exploits of a modern D'Artagnan: he has been a professional gambler,
a gold miner in Alaska, heavy-weight champion of France, a sailor, a
newspaper man, to mention only a few of his non-military activities.
He has served under the flags of Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua &
Honduras, as well as the Stars & Stripes-- and he still carries a
Mexican bullet around with him. At present Captain Craige is in charge
of the publicity bureau of the Marine Corps.
Out of Print.
$65.00
