The Amen Corner.

BALDWIN, James.

Item Number: 130688

New York: Dial Press, 1968.

First edition of Baldwin’s first attempt at theater which toured Europe, the Near East, Tel Aviv, and Edinburgh and played for a year in Los Angeles and on Broadway. Octavo, original cloth. Fine in a near fine dust jacket with some minor chipping to the crown and foot of the spine. An exceptional example of this scarce Baldwin title.

Baldwin's first attempt at theater following the success of Go Tell It on the Mountain, The Amen Corner was first published in 1954, and inspired a short-lived 1983 Broadway musical adaptation with the slightly truncated title, Amen Corner. The play follows the moving story of members of a Harlem storefront church and their spiritual leader, Sister Margaret, who has rejected her husband and dominated her son in order to answer what she believes to be the call of the Lord. Anton Philips' production of The Amen Corner at The Tricycle Theatre in 1987 was the first black-produced and directed play to transfer to the West End of London. Phillips directed a revival of the play, again at The Tricycle, in 1999. The play was revived at the Royal National Theatre in London in the summer of 2013. Actress Juanita Moore was friends with both Marlon Brando and James Baldwin. She asked Brando to lend Baldwin $75 to write "The Amen Corner.”