Harper & Brothers

Harper & Brothers was the publishing house through which Richard Wright’s Native Son moved from manuscript to its revised published text, and it later issued Wright’s “How ‘Bigger’ Was Born.” Its documented role encompasses manuscript delivery, proof-stage revision, publication, corrections, and the changing plan for the essay’s inclusion in an author’s edition.

Manuscript and Editorial Development

Wright sent Harper & Brothers an outline for Native Son in February 1938 and delivered the final typescript to Aswell at the publisher in June 1939. The surviving typescript was prepared by a typist working with Wright from a corrected second draft containing changes inserted with paste. A copy editor marked the typescript, with changes mainly concerning capitalization, hyphenation, typographical errors, numerals, and a few conjunctions.

The novel’s proofs record more substantial revision as well. Wright rewrote an entire scene for the published text, replacing an earlier treatment that included a newsreel and references to Mary Dalton with an extended description of the feature film The Gay Woman. The revision also required changes to later passages, including the prosecutor’s speech at Bigger Thomas’s trial. Other requested changes included toning down explicit sexual language, altering plot details, and shortening speeches by Bigger’s lawyer and the district attorney. Some paragraphs were added, while other adjustments may have been intended to avoid resetting long stretches of type.

Publication and Corrections

After reviewing a new set of proofs in November 1939, Wright saw the requested changes incorporated into the version considered by the Book-of-the-Month Club. By January 1940 the club had decided to accept the novel. Harper & Brothers published Native Son on March 1, 1940, with an introduction by Dorothy Canfield Fisher; the novel was also a dual selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club. All subsequent editions used this revised text.

In July 1940, Wright sent Aswell three corrections for later printings. The changes concerned Chicago geography: Adams Street was to become Seventh Street, northward was to become westward, and HALSTEAD was to be corrected to HALSTED. The corrections were not incorporated into the printing plates until late 1941 or early 1942, showing that the published text continued to receive specific revisions after its initial release.

Publication of “How ‘Bigger’ Was Born”

Wright delivered “How ‘Bigger’ Was Born” as a lecture at Columbia University on March 12, 1940, and again a few weeks later at the Schomberg Library in Harlem. Most of the text appeared in The Saturday Review of Literature on June 1, while a condensed version appeared in Negro Digest in the fall. Harper & Brothers published the first complete printed text as a separate 39-page pamphlet in August 1940.

The pamphlet grew out of a plan to use the essay as an introduction to a special Author’s Edition of Native Son. When sales slowed, Harper & Brothers postponed that edition and issued the essay separately instead. In early 1942, the publisher added the essay to later printings of Native Son, using the same plates as the pamphlet. The edition represented in the volume draws on the 1940 Harper & Brothers pamphlet.