Set to be published in 1939 by Harper’s (which had brought out Uncle Tom’s Children in 1938), Native Son was selected by the influential Book-of-the-Month Club and issued as a main selection in 1940 (after Wright made revisions demanded by the club). That year, it sold some 250,000 copies, no doubt mainly to members of the club. However, sales of the book fell off sharply, according to at least one report, once prospective buyers understood that Native Son was not an entertaining detective story, as some had supposed, but a serious, even harrowing, text.
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