I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.

ANGELOU, Maya.

$1,250.00

Item Number: 149493

New York: Random House, 1969.

First edition, early printing of Angelou’s critically acclaimed first book. Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “Marv Appelbaum Joy! Maya Angelou Nov 20 ’76.” Fine in a fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Janet Halverson. An exceptional 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 and by Time Magazine as one of the top 100 non-fiction books written in English since 1923.