Books

Scarce first edition, first issue of this cornerstone of 20th-century American literature. Very good book in Very good jacket. First issue jacket, with back panel featuring portrait by Gordon Parks. Jacket complete with $3.50 price on flap (jacket has some nicks, tears, creases, and wear to edges; bottom edge of jacket flaps, foot of front pastedown, foot of rear pastedown and endpaper have some dampstaining, with faint unobtrusive traces to cloth at foot as well). One of the central literary documents of the Afro-American experience, Ellison's first book won the National Book Award for 'tracing the life of a young negro trying to find himself as an individual as well as in relation to his race and society' (Oxford Companion to American Literature).

A novel by Ralph Ellison, published in 1952, Invisible Man addresses many of the social and intellectual issues facing African-Americans in the early twentieth century, including black nationalism, the relationship between black identity and Marxism, and the reformist racial policies of Booker T. Washington, as well as issues of individuality and personal identity.