Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Richard Wright. Black Boy. Gallimard, Paris, 1947.
Price: US$1500.00 + shipping
Description: Early Printing of the French Edition. 5.5 x 7.75in. 264pp. Publisher's wraps with original glassine covering. Signed and inscribed by the author on the front endpaper: 'To Mlle. Renee Godin, With my best wishes, sincerely yours, Richard Wright. Feb. 15, 1952. Paris.' Signed by Wright during his last years in Paris having escaped there with his wife, Ellen Poplar, wishing to live out their lives free of the racism they endured in the United States. VERY GOOD. Shows marginal thumbing of the edges, several spine creases from reading and resultant split of the lower quarter of the wrap hinges but holding very tightly, otherwise the binding is strong and tight, the text is clean and unmarked, and the wraps remain bright and distinct. As pictured.
Seller: North Books: Used & Rare, St. Louis, MO, U.S.A.
Price: US$1652.84 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: In-8, broché, couverture bleu clair imprimée en rouge et noir, 264 pp., 2 ff. n. ch. Edition originale française de ce roman autobiographique narrant l'enfance de l'auteur. Un des 110 exemplaires numérotés sur vélin pur fil Lafuma-Navarre, seul grand papier. Envoi autographe signé de l'auteur : "Sincerely yours / Richard Wright". Traduit de l'américain par Marcel Duhamel en collaboration avec Andrée R. Picard. Bel exemplaire, non coupé. Rare exemplaire en grand papier comprenant un envoi de Richard Wright. Récit autobiographique écrit en 1945, narrant l'enfance de l'auteur dans le sud ségrégationniste, Black boy est, avec Native Son, un des chef-d'oeuvres de la littérature noire américaine.
Seller: Librairie Faustroll, Paris, France
Price: US$3850.00 + shipping
Description: First Impression, a review copy, with S.P. printed at upper left corner of rear wrapper. Octavo (20.75cm); original printed wrappers and publisher's glassine overlay; [13],14-264,[4]pp. Inscribed by Wright on the half-title page to French philosopher and intellectual Maurice Merleau-Ponty, above a brief inscription by translator Marcel Duhamel. Slight forward lean, some light wear and handling, with a tiny chip to base of spine, and the usual tanning to text edges, with some tiny nicks and tears to same; Very Good in a Very Good+ glassine. Wright's fourth book, a moving and shocking autobiography of race relations, growing up in the South, and his eventual move to Chicago at age 19, where he established his writing career and became involved with the Communist Party. He moved to Paris in 1946, and became a French citizen the following year. While there he befriended fellow expatriate writers James Baldwin and Chester Himes, and was drawn to existentialism after becoming involved with its primary exponents: Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Albert Camus. Their influence on his writing was especially evident in his 1953 novel The Outsider, which "speaks from an existential framework about the oppression of black people and the resulting violence and crime - something no black writer had tried to do before" (Karny, Roger. "Existentialism from an African-American Perspective." Philsophy Now: A Magazine of Ideas, 2021). While Wright signed and inscribed books liberally during his years in France, assciation copies of real significance are uncommon. BLOCKSON 4801.
Seller: Lorne Bair Rare Books, ABAA, Winchester, VA, U.S.A.