James Baldwin

Baldwin, James

Notes of a Native Son. Boston: The Beacon Press, 1955

8vo. Red cloth with black stamping, dust jacket depicting photograph of Baldwin; fading to spine and one little bump to top of rear hinge.

First edition of Baldwin's powerful first book of essays.

This first collection of Baldwin's non-fiction essays centers on issues of race and identity in both the United States and Europe, where he had emigrated in 1948. The ten texts were previously printed in periodicals such as Harper's Magazine and Partisan Review, and ranged from critical discussions of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Richard Wright's Native Son, and Carmen Jones, to Harlem, Jim Crow segregation, and being Black in France. In 1998, the Modern Library named it to its list of the top 100 non-fiction books of the 20th century, placing it at number 19.