Giovanni’s Room.

BALDWIN, James.

Item Number: 100865

New York: The Dial Press, 1956.

First edition of this landmark novel. Octavo, original half cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “For Dan Johnson: with my very best wishes! James Baldwin.” Fine in a near fine dust jacket price-clipped dust jacket. Jacket design by Seymour Chwast.

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).