Both designers seem to have taken inspiration from the furnace scene where Bigger’s attempt to destroy evidence ironically reveals his crime.īottom row: The two current U.S. Left, Harper’s mass market edition, featuring art by David Diaz, which was repurposed for the trade paperback ( right).įifth row: Eerily similar designs from two different publishers left, the Harper Perennial limited edition (2014) of the novel, and, right, the current edition from Vintage Books UK. As I’ve stated previously in this series, whenever a publisher chooses such an image for the cover, it inevitably influences how the reader envisions the lead character.įourth row: If you read the novel in the 90s, odds are it was one of these two editions, the first paperbacks to make use of the Library of America’s restored text. Third row: Three mass market paperbacks, including the current French edition ( right), that employ a photograph, or a near-photographic image, of a young African American man.
Second row: Three mid-20th Centrury editions that range from a strangely bucolic image ( left), to the more tragic-emotive ( center), to the stoic ( right). Top row: Richard Wright | Right, the first hardcover edition of the novel, it sold 250,000 hardcover copies within three weeks of its publication by the Book-of-the-Month Club, a staggering number for the era. However, in either form, Native Son is, unarguably, one of America’s greatest novels. Concerning the novel, James Baldwin once wrote, “No American Negro exists, who does not have his private Bigger Thomas living in his skull.” Initially abridged by the publisher who feared offending its readers, the author’s original text wasn’t restored until the 1991 Library of America edition. Through a tragic chain of events, Bigger accidentally commits a horrendous act that leads to his inevitable fate as Wright saw it. Dalton but, despite his employer’s kindness, Bigger feels uncomfortable around the Dalton family, particularly the daughter, Mary. He gets a job as a chauffer for the wealthy Mr.
In the novel, Bigger Thomas lives impoverished in Chicago’s South Side, sharing a one room flat with his mother, brother, and sister. The Many Faces (and Book Covers) of Native SonĪs relevant today as when it first appeared in 1940, Richard Wright’s Native Son captures the hope, anger, fear, and frustration that African American’s experience on a daily basis, both then and now.
0 kommentar(er)
