Books

First edition, first printing, of Baldwin's second novel, a cornerstone of 20th-century gay fiction. This copy is in exceptional condition. Following the success of Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), Baldwin won a Guggenheim grant to work on the present novel. His American publisher Knopf turned the manuscript down for its homosexual themes, which they feared would alienate his existing audience. The work was picked up by the Dial Press, with whom Baldwin would publish regularly. Giovanni's Room, "relating the homosexual relationship of an American expat in Paris and featuring an all-white cast of characters, was a book Baldwin had to write, he said in an interview with Richard Goldstein, 'to clarify something for myself'" (ANB). It is now widely considered one of the most influential novels of the era. Octavo. Original black quarter cloth, spine lettered in silver, green marbled paper sides. With dust jacket. Spine ends bumped and rubbed; jacket unclipped, edges of front panel faintly sunned, nick at head of spine, a touch foxed, minor damp stains to rear panel and flap: a near-fine copy in like jacket.

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.