Native Son
by Wright, Richard
- Used
- hardcover
- Condition
- Very Good in Very Good- dust jacket
- Seller
-
Charlottesville, Virginia
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
E-142: Harper & Bros. Very Good in Very Good- dust jacket. 1940. Hardcover. Hardcover. 8vo. Harper & Brothers Publishers. 1940. 359 pgs. First Edition/Later State Binding and DJ. Later state pictorial DJ has light shelf-wear present to the DJ. No ownership marks present. Text is clean and free of marks, binding tight and solid, boards clean with no wear present. The novel tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, an African-American youth living in utter poverty in a poor area on Chicago's South Side in the 1930s. While not apologizing for Bigger's crimes, Wright portrays a systemic inevitability behind them. Bigger's lawyer makes the case that there is no escape from this destiny for his client or any other black American since they are the necessary product of the society that formed them and told them since birth who exactly they were supposed to be. E-142; 9.1 X 6.6 X 1.1 inches; 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
- Last Exit Books
(US)
- Bookseller Inventory #
- 57051
- Title
- Native Son
- Author
- Wright, Richard
- Format/binding
- Hardcover
- Book condition
- Used - Very Good in Very Good- dust jacket
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Publisher
- Harper & Bros
- Place of Publication
- E-142
- Date published
- 1940
Terms of Sale
Last Exit Books
All sales considered final. All items described to the best of my ability. Returns considered if sent back within 10 days of reciept with an email explanation sent to me first or if the item fails to match description. Refunds processed upon the reciept of the book.
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About the Seller
Last Exit Books
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Charlottesville, Virginia
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Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Poor
- A book with significant wear and faults. A poor condition book is still a reading copy with the full text still readable. Any...[more]
- later state
- used in book collecting to refer to a book from a later run of a first edition, generally distinguished by a change in some part...[more]
- tight
- Used to mean that the binding of a book has not been overly loosened by frequent use.
- jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...[more]
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