SULA - INSCRIBED TO ERICA JONG by Morrison, Toni - 1974

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974. First Edition. The Nobel Prize-winning author's second novel, set in a fictional Ohio town and following the lives of two young Black girls and the bonds they shared from girlhood through adulthood. A brief, if significant, inscription to Jong, marking a decades-long friendship between two authors whose literary careers paralleled each other. While undated, book was very likely inscribed at the 1974 ABA convention, where both women were panelists. In Jong's Vogue Italia memorial piece (8 August, 2019), she discusses being a lifelong feminist, how significant the 70's were for women authors, and how Morrison fit within that milieu. "The spirit that moved all of us women writers was a passionate desire to tell the female story. Of course, there were books about women, but they tended to be mad housewives who committed suicide. We all felt that the women's story had not yet found its true place in our culture. We were smart. We were sexual. We were brimming with rebellion. We knew that America had to be liberated. Toni Morrison summed it up when she said, "If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." In saying that, she echoed my own feelings. I never stopped loving Toni or her writing but she became an icon and I think that was a great responsibility for her. She was the great hope of black writers and her job was to make them believe in themselves. I have adopted a similar role for young women writers. I know how that feels." I've seen less than a handful of significant literary association copies of Morrison's works trickle into the marketplace - this one is early, connecting two prominent feminist icons. First Printing. Octavo (22cm); orange cloth, with titles stamped in gilt on spine and front cover; lime green topstain; dustjacket; [xii],[3],4-174,[6]pp. Inscribed by Morrison to author Erica Jong on the second blank page: "To Erica / from Toni." A thumbnail-sized bump to lower rear board edge, else Near Fine. Dustjacket is unclipped (priced $5.95), spine-sunned and lightly edgeworn, with a few tiny tears, and a faint, partial vertical crease toward the right edge of the rear panel; Very Good+.