James Baldwin (1924–1987)
Holograph preparatory notes for Go Tell It on the Mountain
ca. 1950–1951
James Baldwin Papers, Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Holograph preparatory notes for Go Tell It on the Mountain
Baldwin was welcomed in Paris by another American émigré, Richard Wright (1908–1960), whose novel, Native Son, had helped establish him as one of the most famous Black writers of the 1940s. Wright was an important mentor to Baldwin, reading, encouraging, and promoting a very early partial draft of what would eventually become Baldwin’s first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain.
These preparatory notes for Go Tell It on the Mountain came later, when Baldwin was narrowing in on the semi-autobiographical book’s final form. “Begin with a situation,” he writes here, “… involving John at the age of 13 or thereabouts and a girl (or boy) in the church. Situation vague – interest residing in the war thus caused in John.”
: Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, Schomburg Center for Research in…
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