Native Son by WRIGHT, RICHARD - 1940

New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1940. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Very good. 8vo. Stated first edition with A-P on title page. Bound in publisher's grey cloth with gold lettering to the spine. Second issue dust jacket with minor chipping to bottom of spine. A fine copy of this rare book. Wright received a Guggenheim Fellowship to complete his novel, an immediate best seller and portrayal of black youth in the US. Right from the start, Bigger Thomas is headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it is for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.