Description

“FOR THE CAGED BIRD SINGS OF FREEDOM”: TWICE BOLDLY INSCRIBED BY MAYA ANGELOU

ANGELOU, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. New York: Random House, (1969). Octavo, original black cloth, original dust jacket.

First edition of Maya Angelou’s celebrated autobiography, twice inscribed. On the section title, Angelou has boldly written: “Wm. Fox, Joy! Maya Angelou 8/2001.” On the dedication page, Angelou has inscribed the book with a lengthy quotation: “The caged bird sings with a fearful trill,/ his song’s heard on the distant hill,/ for the caged bird sings of freedom. Joy! Maya Angelou. Feb. 4, 2006.”

Angelou “established her place in the American autobiographical canon with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a volume that generated a wealth of critical literature as well as solid recognition for Maya Angelou not only as a black woman writer but as an American autobiographer… I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings distills the essence of her autobiographical impulse, turning it into lyric imagery touched by poignant realism” (Showalter, 2-6). As James Baldwin writes, Angelou’s masterpiece “marks the beginning of a new era in the minds and hearts and lives of all black men and women…. 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.” First issue, with top edge stained red. Edges of cloth lightly sunned. Bright, lovely dust jacket with a few minor chips, some sunning to edges only of front panel.. A near-fine copy with two exceptional, warm inscriptions.