Sula. by MORRISON, Toni - 1974

1974. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974. 8vo., original orange cloth, title in gilt to upper cover and gilt lettering to spine; upper edge yellow, else untrimmed; in original unclipped pictorial jacket with striking design by Wendell Minor; pp. [xiv], 174, [vi]; a near-fine copy, with a few spots of darkening to gilt title on upper board; text block ever-so-slightly warped; ffep unopened and very small closed tear to rear endpaper; jacket also near-fine with edges just a tad rolled; a beautiful copy. First edition of the Nobel Laureate's second novel. At its heart a novel of friendship and race relations, set in Ohio in the 1900s, Morrison's second foray into Literature explores the lives of two girls who meet in Childhood, and whose paths diverge and come back together, inextricably intertwined with one another. Also encompassing themes of Motherhood, death, poverty and forgiveness, Sula established Morrison as one of the 20th century's most significant novelists. The book became integral to the formation of black feminist literary criticism, with its portrait of what it meant and cost to be a black woman in America at the time. "Because each had discovered years before that they were neither white nor male, and that all freedom and triumph was forbidden to them, they had set about creating something else to be."