The Confessions of Nat Turner

New York: Random House, 1967. First edition, first printing. 8vo. Black cloth, stamped in silver and metallic orange on cover and spine; dust jacket spine and top rear edge sunned; light edgewear to head and tail of spine. First edition, first printing. 8vo. Almost immediately upon its publication, Styron's acclaimed novel — loosely based on a first-hand account of Nat Turner's 1831 slave rebellion — generated intense animosity among many African Americans, who were deeply offended not only by its negative portrayals of Black characters, but also the favorable depictions of white slaveowners. To confront this, a group of Black intellectuals issued a collection of critical essays in 1968 (William Styron's Nat Turner: Ten Black Writers Respond), but Styron had notable defenders in the community, too, among them James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison. Despite the controversy, the novel would be awarded the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and Time Magazine later included it on its list of the 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.