Haley, Alex

Roots: The Saga of an American Family

ISBN: 0385037872
Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1976. First Edition. Hardcover. "When he was a boy in Henning, Tennessee, Alex Haley's grandmother used to tell him stories about their family- stories that went back to her grandparents, and their grandparents, down through the generations all the way to a man she called "the African." She said he had lived across the ocean near what he called the "Kamby Bolongo" and had been out in the forest one day chopping wood to make a drum when he was set upon by four men, beaten, chained and dragged aboard a slave ship bound for Colonial America. Still vividly remembering the stories after he grew up and became a writer, Haley began to search for documentation that might authenticate the narrative. It took ten years and a half a million miles of travel across three continents to find it, but finally, in an astonishing feat of genealogical detective work, he discovered not only the name of "the African"- Kunta Kinte- but the precise location of the Juffure, the very village in The Gambia, West Africa, from which he was abducted in1767 at the age of sixteen and taken on the Lord Ligonier to Maryland and sold to a Virginia planter." (from front flap) The prize-winning, acclaimed classic work of autobiography & history by Alex(ander Murray Palmer) Haley (1921-1992), the great African-American author. This deep-digging saga was the basis for the popular, award-winning television miniseries broadcast the following year (1977). Hardcover in unclipped dust jacket, first edition as stated at copyright page, presumed first printing though not specified thereon. From the collection of Barbara (1935-2023) & Irving (1933-2018) Nusbaum, world travellers, connoisseurs, eminent collectors of art & books- the dearly beloved mother & father of this still-grieving writer. Well do I remember browsing this volume in our family library, & watching the riveting series. An essential Haley collectible in its rarest contemporary form, with distinguished provenance. Book in relatively quite fine-to-very-fine condition with mild wear & some tiny bumps, creases at edges & corners of front, back covers & spine esp. at spine-edges, corners; very slight rubbing, occasional spot-staining & a hint of age-toning to edges of text block (side edge of same uncut as issued). Interior fine-to-very fine with only several small instances of vertical bubbling-crinkling from upper right edge of blank front paste-down (undoubtedly a slight flaw as issued); family ownership signature "Nusbaums/flourish" in Barbara Nusbaum's elegant cursive hand in blue ink at upper left area of blank front endpaper; bleeding of spot-stains just onto lower outer edges of a few page leaves. Dust jacket (again relatively) near-fine with mild rubbing, mostly faint scratching, age-toning & occasional spotting to front, back covers, spine & flaps; light wear & some tiny bumps, creases at/from edges & corners of same; several short, mostly closed vertical tears from upper & lower edges & corners of same with minimal loss of paper, surface paper. Fine-Very Fine / Near Fine. [Item #9037]

Price: $125.00 save 10% $112.50