Skip to content

No image available

NATIVE SON

No image available

NATIVE SON

by WRIGHT, Richard

  • Used
  • first
Condition
See description
Seller
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Lanesborough, Massachusetts, United States
Item Price
£84.17£67.34
£5.96 Shipping to USA
Standard delivery: 7 to 14 days

More Shipping Options
Ask Seller a Question

Payment Methods Accepted

  • Visa
  • Mastercard
  • American Express
  • Discover
  • PayPal

About This Item

NY: Harper, 1940. First Edition. 8vo, pp. 359. Slightly scuffed at ends of spine, in the more common second binding of gray cloth. A nice copy in chipped dj.

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

Reviews

(Log in or Create an Account first!)

You’re rating the book as a work, not the seller or the specific copy you purchased!

Details

Bookseller
Second Life Books Inc US (US)
Bookseller's Inventory #
33815
Title
NATIVE SON
Author
WRIGHT, Richard
Book Condition
Used
Quantity Available
1
Edition
First Edition
Publisher
Harper
Place of Publication
NY
Date Published
1940

Terms of Sale

Second Life Books Inc

Books returnable within 10 days.

About the Seller

Second Life Books Inc

Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Biblio member since 2008
Lanesborough, Massachusetts
Ask Seller a Question

About Second Life Books Inc

Established on 1972, we sell used and rare books. We are members of the Antiquarian Booksellers Assoc. of America, the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers and the Massachusetts and Rhode Island Booksellers .

Glossary

Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:

First Edition
In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
Cloth
"Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
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....

Frequently asked questions

This Book’s Categories

tracking-