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.
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Markings: Previous owner
A bold and incendiary work of American social fiction, Kingsblood Royal chronicles the story of Neil Kingsblood, a white, middle-class banker in a Minnesota town who discovers through genealogical research that he has Black ancestry — and makes the fateful decision to publicly claim that identity. Sinclair Lewis uses this explosive premise to deliver a searing indictment of mid-twentieth-century American racism, illustrating with unflinching clarity how swiftly a community turns on one of its own the moment racial boundaries are crossed. The novel's tone is at once satirical and deeply urgent, as Lewis dissects the hypocrisy of liberal white society with the same sharp wit he brought to Main Street and Babbitt. Published in 1947, the narrative remains a prescient and courageous work, arguing that racial prejudice is not a regional aberration but a systemic rot embedded in the very fabric of American respectability. It stands as one of Lewis's most politically charged novels, a work that confronts its readers with uncomfortable truths about identity, privilege, and the violent cost of defying social convention.
Author: Sinclair Lewis
Format: Hardback
Published: 1948, Jonathan Cape in association with Australasian Publishing Co.
Genre: Modern fiction
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Markings: Previous owner
A bold and incendiary work of American social fiction, Kingsblood Royal chronicles the story of Neil Kingsblood, a white, middle-class banker in a Minnesota town who discovers through genealogical research that he has Black ancestry — and makes the fateful decision to publicly claim that identity. Sinclair Lewis uses this explosive premise to deliver a searing indictment of mid-twentieth-century American racism, illustrating with unflinching clarity how swiftly a community turns on one of its own the moment racial boundaries are crossed. The novel's tone is at once satirical and deeply urgent, as Lewis dissects the hypocrisy of liberal white society with the same sharp wit he brought to Main Street and Babbitt. Published in 1947, the narrative remains a prescient and courageous work, arguing that racial prejudice is not a regional aberration but a systemic rot embedded in the very fabric of American respectability. It stands as one of Lewis's most politically charged novels, a work that confronts its readers with uncomfortable truths about identity, privilege, and the violent cost of defying social convention.