Zora Neale Hurston’s masterpiece Their Eyes Were Watching God was largely neglected at the time of its original publication in 1937 until Alice Walker’s recovery of Hurston in the 1970s catapulted the book into its rightful place in the pantheon of American letters. Recognized now as an indispensable part of the American canon, Hurston’s story of Janie Crawford is both a poignant literary portrait of black womanhood and a rigorous anthropological account of African-American life in the interwar South.

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Arion’s edition of Their Eyes Were Watching God is animated by the distinctive style of Kenturah Davis’s drawing. Davis created “text drawings” that fuse language and image by writing and rewriting meaningful phrases from Hurston’s prose to build up textured portraits of Janie Crawford at different stages in her life. In addition, Davis has selected salient excerpts from Hurston’s text which appear as intimate commentary along the bottom of every page. This continuously running line—printed from over 100 plates reproducing Davis’s hand-written manuscript—flows from the first page to the last as a surrogate heartbeat for the novel.

50 embossed prints with chine collé, numbered and signed by the artist Kenturah Davis, are available for sale: 40 accompany the Deluxe edition and 10 are offered individually. “Here Was Peace” features a color photograph portrait of Janie Crawford’s character set beside a striking, blind-embossed passage from the closing lines of Hurston’s novel. These unique prints measure 12 x 14½ inches and are printed on heavyweight 300 gsm textured all-cotton Somerset, suitable for framing.

Production Details

• Limited to 250 copies for sale

• Octavo, 8-3/8 x 6-¼ inches, 248 numbered pages with an additional 4 fold-out portraits tipped in by hand.

• Printed by letterpress on 130 gsm Hahnemühle mouldmade Bugra from Monotype Garamont metal types cast for the project, with various styles of Lydian handset for display.

• Includes four portraits that fold out from the book—two vertically and two horizontally—printed on a mouldmade laid sheet from the Magnani paper mill.

• Printed in three colors: black for the text; brown for the titling and chapter heads; and silver to recreate the sheen of the footers drawn in graphite.

• All copies are meticulously rounded by hand.

• Front and rear endsheets are imprinted with a custom wallpaper, a transcription by the artist of the famed passage which includes the book’s title.

• Signed by the artist.

• Arion Press publication #125, 2023

The Fine Press Edition

• Bound in full teal blue cloth, with foil-stamped spine titling.

• The cover features an appliqué of Janie Crawford’s silhouette in dark green Hanji paper foil-stamped with titling.

• Presented in handmade, three-piece slipcases with blue cloth edges, spine titling, and paper side panels imprinted with the passage from the novel that includes Hurston’s title which Davis transcribed by hand.

• Limited to 210 copies for sale.

The Deluxe Edition

• The cover design features parallel graphic silhouettes of Janie Crawford which face each other so the two profiles in teal form a dark green chalice of a matching leatherette between their eyes.

• Presented in a handmade clamshell box with Hanji paper spine titling, edges, and linings, and blue-black cloth covers embedded with a debossed chalice/profile.

• Accompanied by “Here Was Peace” print with chine collé and blind embossing, signed.

• Limited to 40 copies for sale.