Description
Whittlesey House / McGraw-Hill Book Company, Published 1947. Hardcover, viii, 364 pp.; 21 cm; copyright 1947, no later printing stated.
Rare, out-of-print & unusual books · Since 1997
18
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Catalog notes
Condition & notes
In Good condition, no dust jacket. Green cloth boards, maroon spine label with gilt lettering, gilt decorative rules on spine; spine faded with rubbing at head and tail, light white spots on front and rear boards, mild shelf wear and faint soiling. Binding tight. Endpapers and page edges toned with light foxing to edges of text block; pages toned with occasional light spotting. Otherwise unmarked. Novel of a Black family on Breezy Hill outside a small Georgia town, centered on Uncle Gimme, Aunt Charity and their light-skinned granddaughter Deel, whose birth draws the town's attention and its prejudice. Written largely in dialect, the title taken from Isaiah's parable of the vineyard that brought forth wild grapes. One of the postwar "tolerance" novels of 1947 on the irrationality of white racism, alongside Sinclair Lewis's Kingsblood Royal and Will Thomas's God Is for White Folks (see J. A. Delton, American Literary History 15:2, 2003). Hewlett's earlier books include Thunder Beats the Drum, Like Moonlight on Snow and Cross on the Moon.