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Native Son

Native Son

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Native Son

by Wright, Richard

  • Used
  • Hardcover
  • first
Condition
Very Good in Good dust jacket; Jacket tattered and chipped at spine.
Seller
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Selkirk, New York, United States
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About This Item

NY: Harper and Brothers. Very Good in Good dust jacket; Jacket tattered and chipped at spine.. 1940. First Edition; Second Printing. Hardcover. Gray cloth binding. Second printing, second state binding with second state dust jacket illustrated by Floethe. B-P code on copyright page. No price printed on jacket. ; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 359 pages .

Synopsis

Richard Wright’s Native Son tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, a black American youth living in utter poverty in Chicago's South Side during the 1930s. When Bigger unintentionally murders a white woman, he is put on trial and eventually convicted, and sentenced to the electric chair. Often recognized as a protest novel, Native Son stresses systemic racial issues, prompting the reader to feel both sympathy and empathy for Bigger. In this, the novel is one of the earliest successful attempts to explain the racial divide in America in terms of the conditions imposed on African-Americans by the dominant white society. Soon after publication, Native Son was selected by the Book of the Month Club as its first book by an African-American author. Indeed, the novel was an immediate best seller, selling 250,000 hardcover copies within three weeks of its publication. As a result of the novel’s success, Wright became the first bestselling and the wealthiest black writer of his time, establishing him as a spokesperson for African-American issues and, to many, the “father of Black American literature.” In 1941, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People awarded Wright awarded the prestigious Spingarn Medal. Unsurprisingly, Native Son was challenged in many public schools and libraries and is listed in the American Library Association's list of the “Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–1999.” Yet most institutions in which the novel was challenged successfully fought to keep Wright's work accessible, particularly in the classroom, defending it as a guide into the reality of the complex adult and social world.   Native son is listed as 20th on the Modern Library’s list of the “100 Best” English-language novels of the 20th century. It is also included in TIME’s “100 Best Novels” (since 1923).

Read More: Identifying first editions of Native Son

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Details

Bookseller
Old Saratoga Books US (US)
Bookseller's Inventory #
49375
Title
Native Son
Author
Wright, Richard
Format/Binding
Hardcover
Book Condition
Used - Very Good in Good dust jacket; Jacket tattered and chipped at spine.
Quantity Available
1
Edition
First Edition; Second Printing
Publisher
Harper and Brothers
Place of Publication
NY
Date Published
1940
Weight
0.00 lbs
Keywords
1940s Novels, African American Literature
Bookseller catalogs
Fiction;

Terms of Sale

Old Saratoga Books

We are happy to provide a refund within thirty days of the customer's receipt of any book(s) upon return of the book(s) to our shop.

About the Seller

Old Saratoga Books

Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Biblio member since 2005
Selkirk, New York

About Old Saratoga Books

Old Saratoga Books owners Dan and Rachel Jagareski have been selling books since 1996. After running an open shop for twenty years in the historic village of Schuylerville we now sell books online and at book fairs. We are members of the Independent Online Booksellers Association (IOBA). Our specialties include books about history, science, cooking, children's books, and the arts. Rachel is a graduate of the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar and has attended Rare Book School in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Glossary

Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:

Spine
The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
Second State
used in book collecting to refer to a first edition, but after some change has been made in the printing, such as a correction,...
Cloth
"Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
Copyright page
The page in a book that describes the lineage of that book, typically including the book's author, publisher, date of...
Jacket
Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...

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