"RETURNING RISK AND MISCHIEF TO THE CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN NOVEL": FIRST EDITION OF TONI MORRISON'S TAR BABY, INSCRIBED BY HER

MORRISON, Toni. Tar Baby. New York: Knopf, 1981. Octavo, original tan cloth, original dust jacket. $1800.

First trade edition of Morrison's fourth novel, her evocative and allegorical exploration of the "sordid underside" of an exotic Caribbean paradise, inscribed by her, "For E— & D— from Toni Morrison."

"Set on a Caribbean island representing a microcosm of benevolence and benign intentions on the part of its white owners, the novel probes the more sordid underside and history of that benevolence… Tar Baby is not a love story as much as it is the ground for first world and third world collision" (African American Writers, 263-64). In his review for the New York Times, John Irving hailed her book, saying: "Morrison seems to be returning… risk and mischief to the contemporary American novel, and never more extravagantly than in Tar Baby, her fourth and most ambitious book…" Critic Linda Krumholz argues it contains "some of her clearest statements" about the relationships among culture, economy and racism, and highlights art's potential "to transform readers and, consequently… the cultural and material world" (Contemporary Literature 49:2). Preceded by a signed Franklin Library edition. Blockson 6535. Showalter, Baechler & Litz, 220-21.

Book fine, dust jacket nearly so, with very mild toning to spine.