The Fire Next Time

Taschen, 2017. Hardcover. Fine. Hardcover. Number 1641 of 1963 copies signed by the photographer. This is the collector's edition with each copy printed in letterpress and signed by Steve Schapiro (1934 - 2022). Winner of the 2017 Lucie Award, Book Publisher of the Year for a Limited Edition. In their review of this powerful and troubling book, The American Institute of Architects and Amazon described it: " First published in 1963, James Baldwin s The Fire Next Time stabbed at the heart of America s so-called Negro problem. As remarkable for its masterful prose as for its frank and personal account of the black experience in the United States, it is (truncated) considered one of the most passionate and influential explorations of 1960s race relations, weaving thematic threads of love, faith, and family into a candid assault on the hypocrisy of the land of the free. Now, James Baldwin 's rich, raw, and ever relevant prose is reprinted with more than 100 black and white and color photographs from Steve Schapiro, who traveled the American South with Baldwin for Life magazine. The encounter thrust Schapiro into the thick of the movement, allowing for vital, often iconic, images both of civil rights leaders including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Fred Shuttlesworth, and Jerome Smith and such landmark events as the March on Washington and the Selma march. Rounding out the edition are Schapiro 's stories from the field, an original introduction by civil rights legend and U.S. Congressman John Lewis, captions by journalist Marcia Davis, and an essay by Gloria Baldwin Karefa-Smart, who was with her brother James in Sierra Leone when he started to work on the story. The result is a remarkable visual and textual record of one of the most important and enduring struggles of the American experience. Writes the publisher: "All the grief, grit, and unassailable dignity of the civil rights movement are evoked in this letterpress edition of James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, illustrated with photographs by Steve Schapiro. Together, Baldwin’s frank account of the black experience and Schapiro’s vital images offer poetic and potent testimony to one of the most important struggles of American society."

Bound in red paper covered boards with images of marchers affixed to the front and back covers and with a black and red title label to spine. The book was published with two different paper stocks and includes tip-ins such as a reproduction of the Time magazine issue of May 17, 1963 with James Baldwin on the cover. Housed in a brown cardboard slip case with black and red title sheet affixed to one side and spine, and images of marchers on the other. In fine condition. Measures 9.4 x 13.4 inches. 272 pages. LIT/110424. (Inventory #: 37589)