I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.

ANGELOU, Maya.

Item Number: 4334

New York: Random House, 1969.

First edition of the Angelou’s critically acclaimed first book. Octavo, original first issue book, with the top edge stained red. Signed by the author, “Joy! Maya Angelou” on the half-title page. Fine in a near fine dust jacket with a touch of rubbing. Jacket design by Janet Halverson. An excellent example.

"This testimony from a black sister marks the beginning of a new era in the minds and hearts of all black men and women... I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life with such a moving wonder, such a luminous dignity. I have no words for this achievement, but I know that not since the days of my childhood, when the people in books were more real than the people one saw every day, have I found myself so moved... Her portrait is a biblical study in life in the midst of death" (James Baldwin). Named by Modern Library as one of the 100 best non-fiction books of the twentieth century.