HOW 'BIGGER' WAS BORN, The Story of Native Son, one of the most significant novels of our time, and how it came to be written.
Wright, Richard.
HOW 'BIGGER' WAS BORN, The Story of Native Son, one of the most significant novels of our time, and how it came to be written.
Wright, Richard.
Publisher: Harper & Bros: NY
Date published: 1940
Format: Softcover
8 x 5.25, printed stapled self wraps, 51 pp, covers worn, chipped, torn, and creased, contents toned and thumbed. Later printing ("c-q") but INSCRIBED "To Horace with all my own best . . ." AND SIGNED "Dick and Ellen" BY THE AUTHOR RICHARD WRIGHT.
First edition, first issue with "A - P" on the copyright page. Octavo, bound in full morocco by the Harcourt Bindery, gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, gilt ruling to the front and rear panels, gilt inner dentelles stamp-signed by the Harcourt Bindery, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. An exceptional presentation. Richard Wright's ground-breaking novel Native Son tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, an African American living in utter poverty in Chicago's South Side ghetto in the 1930s. "The day Native Son appeared, American culture was changed forever. It made impossible a repetition of the old lies [and] brought out into the open, as no one ever had before, the hatred, fear and violence that have crippled and may yet destroy our culture" (Irving Howe).
xi. Introduction by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. 359pp. Blue top edges. Blue cloth boards with black and gilt title on spine. Slightly rubbed. Pictorial Chipped and rubbed Dust Jacket. INSCRIBED on f.f.p. "Best Wishes to Michael Parlato Richard Wright 3/5/40." A nice copy with a rare signature. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall
First Edition of this landmark, highly collectible title by Richard Wright.  A close to Fine copy in its original very good pictorial dust jacket, corners clipped, a jacket whose front and rear are superb but the spine is severely stained on its lower third.  That said, and nonetheless, a more than presentable copy of an important First Edition which is signed and inscribed on the front free endpaper as follows:  With my best wishes / Richard Wright
First edition, first issue dark blue binding. About fine with light bump at one corner and offsetting from a clipping, in a very good or better first issue dust jacket with some scuffs and small stains on the spine and rear panel. Housed in a custom quarter morocco and marbled papercovered boards clamshell case. This copy Inscribed to Ralph D. Hartman, president of the Cleveland Photographic Society and avid book collector, with his bookplate on the front pastedown: "To - Ralph D. Hartman 'Freedom belongs to the strong . ' Sincerely, Richard Wright. 2/19/41 Brooklyn. N.Y." One of the handful of great classics of 20th Century fiction, increasingly difficult to find inscribed.
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gilt: The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book. The edges of the text block, or an inlay in the front cover of the boards, for example.