Books

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953, 1st ed., (10),303,(1) pag., original brick-red cloth, upper cover and spine lettered in gilt, lower cover with publisher s device blindstamped in lower right corner (upper and lower margin cloth partly trifle sunfaded), top edge stained blue (blue faded), complete with the original pictorial dustjacket designed by John O'Hara Cosgrave II (price intact "$3.50 net", top edge mildly creased; spine sunfaded and small fragments lacking at top; rear flap author's photographic portrait cut out; front flap fold partly chafed).= Stated first edition. The copy was formerly owned by a reviewer who cut out the portrait from the rear-flap to illustrate his review - a portrait-clipped dustjacket remains. Copy appears unread, very solid. Baldwin s novel draws heavily on his personal experience growing up in Harlem, his family environment and the wider affects of the Great Migration from the South during the early 1930s. Go Tell It On the Mountain is considered one of the seminal texts of African-American experience during the early 20th century.

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.