Books

Octavo, 256pp. Full black cloth, title in gilt on spine. Stated "First published. 1954" on copyright page with no additional impressions listed. Solid text block, bumped corners, foxed endpapers, otherwise bright. In the publisher's dust jacket, 12s 6d retail price on front flap. Some chipping to top edge and corners, lightly sunned spine, faint soiling to rear panel. A few tape repairs to verso, reinforcing chipped edges. A very good example of Baldwin's first published novel. This rare first UK edition is preceded by the first US edition, also published in 1954.

Go Tell It on the Mountain is a semi-autobiographical novel by James Baldwin that examines the role of the Christian Church in the lives of African-Americans, both as a source of repression and moral hypocrisy and as a source of inspiration and community. It also details the social and psychological pressures that lead to the moral and spiritual decline of John Grimes, a teenage boy much like Baldwin himself.