Kingsblood Royal
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Edition: Reprint
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: N/A
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Sinclair Lewis’s blistering 1948 novel shattered the illusion of post-war racial harmony by thrusting a respectable, white Midwestern banker into an identity crisis that would upend his entire world. Neil Kingsblood, a conventional young veteran climbing the social ladder in the fictional city of Grand Republic, Minnesota, embarks on a casual search into his family genealogy only to make a shocking discovery: he is descended from an African king. Bound by a strict legal and social "one-drop rule," Neil chooses to disclose his heritage rather than hide it. In doing so, he is instantly cast out by his peer group, facing sudden, vicious bigotry from the very neighbors, colleagues, and institutions that had celebrated him just days before. Written by the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Kingsblood Royal remains a searing, ahead-of-its-time critique of systemic racism and institutional hypocrisy in white America. Lewis utilizes his trademark razor-sharp satire and journalistic eye for societal norms to expose how fragile the veneer of mid-century civility truly was. Far from just a relic of its era, this gripping psychological and social drama challenges the reader to examine the arbitrary constructs of race and privilege. This scarce 1948 Australasian printing offers collectors a fascinating artifact of how Lewis's urgent social message was distributed to global audiences immediately following World War II.
Author: Sinclair Lewis
Format: Hardback
Published: 1948, onathan Cape (in association with Australasian Publishing Co.)
Genre: American history
Edition: Reprint
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: N/A
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Sinclair Lewis’s blistering 1948 novel shattered the illusion of post-war racial harmony by thrusting a respectable, white Midwestern banker into an identity crisis that would upend his entire world. Neil Kingsblood, a conventional young veteran climbing the social ladder in the fictional city of Grand Republic, Minnesota, embarks on a casual search into his family genealogy only to make a shocking discovery: he is descended from an African king. Bound by a strict legal and social "one-drop rule," Neil chooses to disclose his heritage rather than hide it. In doing so, he is instantly cast out by his peer group, facing sudden, vicious bigotry from the very neighbors, colleagues, and institutions that had celebrated him just days before. Written by the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Kingsblood Royal remains a searing, ahead-of-its-time critique of systemic racism and institutional hypocrisy in white America. Lewis utilizes his trademark razor-sharp satire and journalistic eye for societal norms to expose how fragile the veneer of mid-century civility truly was. Far from just a relic of its era, this gripping psychological and social drama challenges the reader to examine the arbitrary constructs of race and privilege. This scarce 1948 Australasian printing offers collectors a fascinating artifact of how Lewis's urgent social message was distributed to global audiences immediately following World War II.