Fine Books & Manuscripts

HANSBERRY, Lorraine (1930–1965). A Raisin in the Sun. New York: Random House, [1959]. 8vo. Illustrated from photographs. Publisher’s cloth–backed boards, upper cover mounted with photograph of Sidney Poitier; original unclipped dust jacket (few tiny chips at extreme ends with a trifle bit of soiling). FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING of Hansberry’s classic play that won her, at the age of twenty–nine, the 1959 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best play making her the youngest playwright to receive this award. “For the first time, black bodies appeared on the Great White Way as authentic human beings rather than buffoons and stereotypes” (Taylor, “A Raisin in the Sun: A Drama in Three Acts”, Caxton Chicago by the Book pp. 174–174). Caxton Chicago by the Book 80.