A Lesson Before Dying

by Gaines, Ernest

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Description

New York: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 1993 Hint of edge wear to the dj, gently scuffed, overall a very crisp and clean used copy, gift quality! Dj is nicely preserved in a brand new protective mylar plastic cover! 256 very clean, unmarked and uncreased historical pages! "A young black named Jefferson is a reluctant party in a shoot-out in a liquor store in which the three other men involved are all killed, including the white store owner. Jefferson, the only survivor, is accused of murder. At the trial, the essence of the defense is that the accused, a lowly form of existence lacking even a modicum of intelligence, is incapable of premeditated murder. His lawyer argues: 'Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this.' But Jefferson is condemned to death...". Third Printing. Black Boards. Fine/Very Good+. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Hardcover.

Book summary

In this story of injustice and redemption set in rural Louisiana during the late 1940s, Grant Wiggins, a backwoods schoolmaster, is asked visit a young black prisoner on death row. Jefferson, the prisoner, was falsely accused and convicted of murder and is sentenced to hang, and Wiggins's job, once he realizes the impossibility of overturning the verdict, is to prepare the boy for death. Although, as a nonbeliever, Wiggins at first finds himself in competition with the minister for the boy's attention, he eventually comes to see that the cultivation of any instinct of love--human or religious--is the essence of salvation, both for Jefferson and himself. Ernest J. Gaines's morally wrenching novel has become a classic of American literature.