Books

New York: The Dial Press, 1956. First edition of this landmark novel. Octavo, original half cloth. Signed by James Baldwin on the half-title page. Fine in a very good dust jacket with light rubbing and wear to the extremities. Jacket design by Seymour Chwast. Rare and desirable signed. Set in the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality. With a sharp, probing imagination, James Baldwin's now-classic narrative delves into the mystery of loving and creates a moving, highly controversial story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart. “If Van Gogh was our 19th-century artist-saint, James Baldwin is our 20th-century one" (Michael Ondaatje).

Giovanni's Room is a 1956 novel by James Baldwin. The book focuses on the events in the life of an American man living in Paris and his feelings and frustrations with his relationships with other men in his life, particularly an Italian bartender named Giovanni whom he meets at a Parisian gay bar.