Baldwin, James.

Go Tell It On the Mountain

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953. First edition. "First Edition" stated on copyright page. Previous owner's bookplate to upper pastedown. Unrestored dust jacket with minimal wear at the spine ends and extremities. A short closed tear at the lower spine fold and a longer closed tear at the top of the front panel. An excellent, bright and Fine copy of the book in the Near Fine dust jacket.

James Baldwin wrote Go Tell it On the Mountain, his first novel, while secluded in a village in the Swiss Alps. The autobiographical novel follows fourteen-year-old John Grimes and his family, exploring their history and internal lives from 1875 to the Great Depression and spanning from the South to Harlem. The novel was nominated for a National Book Award in 1954 and propelled Baldwin to literary prominence. The next year, Baldwin was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and wrote his second novel, Giovanni's Room (1956). Go Tell it On the Mountain, now a classic of twentieth-century American writing and a cornerstone in Black literary history, was included on Time magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels released from 1923 to 2005.

"Go Tell It on the Mountain...was widely praised...Baldwin said in 1985 that in many ways the book remained the keystone of his career. 'Mountain is the book I had to write if I was ever going to write anything else,' he said. 'I had to deal with what hurt me most. I had to deal, above all, with my father. He was my model. I learned a lot from him. Nobody's ever frightened me since'" (New York Times). The novel is widely considered his "most fully crafted piece of fiction and by many accounts his best" (African American Writers, 3) and has been acclaimed as "a modern classic of African American literature" (Stringer, 40).

Blockson 5363. Fine in Near Fine dust jacket. (Item #7254)