Books

Octavo. 5.5 x 8.5 in. 303 pp. Very good in original orange cloth boards with gilt lettering. Previous owner signature and address written in pen on front paste-down endpaper. Slight sunning to spine with minor dampstaining to top fore-corner of head of textblock. A tight copy that lacks issued dust jacket. Baldwin's first book.

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.