Cane

Project Description
Jean Toomer’s Cane (1923) gathers short stories, poems, and a closing play into three parts that move from the rural South to the urban North and then toward a reckoning. The form shifts with the settings, letting brief scenes, songs, and dialogue carry the rhythms of work, memory, and desire. The book reads as a crossing of places and voices rather than a single continuous plot.

Headlines and section numbers are set in Albertus Nova, a contemporary revival of Albertus, and the body uses VTC Wolpe, derived from Pegasus, both by Berthold Wolpe. A German Jewish type designer, Wolpe fled Nazi Germany in 1935 and settled in London, where he built a career designing typefaces and book covers. The pairing reflects how Harlem Renaissance typography blends German-American and African American aesthetics, a lineage that runs through Aaron Douglas, widely regarded as the first Black graphic designer in the contemporary sense, who studied with the German designer Winold Reiss.  

Original Publication Date
1923

Intended Audience
English professors and students, Black history and culture professors and students, people interested in Harlem Renaissance literature, historians, history teachers and students, ages 16+

Trim Size
6 × 9 inches

Type
Title and headers: Albertus Nova Thin and Regular
Body text: 11/16 VTC Wolpe

Manufacturing Specifications
matte casewrap