8vo. Original two-toned cloth, top edge stained black (some minor rubbing to white lettering on spine); in unrestored unclipped dust jacket (short tear to rear spine fold with crease to rear panel, some light chipping and rubbing to extremities); morocco folding case. Provenance: Jill & Louie (presentation inscription).

PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed by Ellison in the year of publication: "For Jill & Louie with whom I've spent some of my pleasantest hours, Sincerely Ralph Ellison Easter, 1952."

FIRST EDITION OF ELLISON'S FIRST NOVEL, the only novel published during his lifetime. Invisible Man "is one of the most impressive post-war American novels. Its theme is that of much 20th-century literature: modern man's search for identity in an incomprehensible world. Its...hero emerges as an archetypal faceless underground man; denied any basis for self-definition by his world, he remains invisible" (p. 85, The Penguin Companion to American Literature, Malcolm Bradbury, et al, editors, 1971).