Native Son
Richard Wright


Description: New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1940; First Edition, first printing. Original dark blue cloth with titling in red and white / gray blocks on the front cover and spine (as indicated for the first state) and red / black title page; "First Edition" stated on the copyright page with A-P just below; 1940 date on the copyright page as well as in red on the title page; in second state dust jacket from the same year, considered to be the more preferable jacket with the Floethe vignette. First edition of the author's magnum opus; one of the most powerful protest novels ever published on the African American condition in America. 

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. "No American Negro exists", James Baldwin once wrote, "who does not have his private Bigger Thomas living in his skull." Frantz Fanon discusses this feeling in his 1952 essay "L'Expérience Vécue du Noir", or "The Fact of Blackness". "In the end", writes Fanon, "Bigger Thomas acts. To put an end to his tension, he acts, he responds to the world's anticipation.

Blockson 101: "Native Son created a sensation when it appeared in 1940, it was Wright's most significant work of fiction and catapulted him into national fame. The book is a shattering portrait of Bigger Thomas, the protagonist, who is a product of racism and oppression. The novel takes its readers through treacherous corridors of violence and retribution as its reflects much of the unrest in the American racial system." 

Andrews, Foster, Harris: "Richard Wright's influence on American literature is nearly inestimable. He demonstrated for the first time that an African American could indeed be a major writer of international fame and stature. He modeled possibilities hitherto not seen or known for African American writers [.] many seem him as among the greatest writers of the century."  

Blockson 156: "A novel of tremendous power and beauty, Native Son ranks with such great American novels as An American Tragedy and The Grapes of Wrath." 

Blockson Collection 5938. Whiteman, p48: "The most articulate expression of the psychological problems which lead to violence and brutality yet to be put into the form of a novel." 

Condition: Very Good with wear to the edges and some discoloration to the text pages in Very Good Dust Jacket with visible shelf-wear (chip present to the rear panel of the DJ and to the spine) now protected with a mylar cover. Text is free of marks but there is a stain present to two pages (see photo), binding tight and solid, boards clean with no wear present.

Additional Information: Richard Nathaniel Wright (1908 -1960) was an American author of novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially related to the plight of African Americans during the late 19th to mid-20th centuries, who suffered discrimination and violence in the South and the North. Literary critics believe his work helped change race relations in the United States in the mid-20th century.

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