Description
Author: Chinua Achebe
Publisher: Astor-Honor, Honor Book
Place: New York
Year: 1965
Edition: First Honor Book edition
Format: Paperback
Condition: Good vintage condition. The intact covers show moderate surface rubbing and light edge wear. Doane Perry’s dated 1966 ownership inscription appears on an interior page.
Provenance: Thomas Doane Perry III estate; inscribed “Doane Perry / November 1966 / New York”
ISBN: None shown
Description: In an Igbo community in what is now Nigeria, Okonkwo has built a life around strength, achievement, and tradition. As European missionaries and colonial authorities arrive, the world he knows begins to change. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart tells this pivotal story from within the community it portrays.
This copy is the first Honor Book edition, published in 1965. An interior page bears the ownership inscription “Doane Perry / November 1966 / New York.” Perry was an African studies educator and Peace Corps veteran. The inscription is Perry’s ownership markshowing that it was from his estate and personal collection.
Why we love this book: This early paperback of a landmark African novel has a dated connection to Perry’s African studies library. Its intact period cover and ownership inscription give this particular copy a distinct history.
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, and essayist. His best-known novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), portrays an Igbo community as European colonial rule approaches. It became a foundational work of modern African literature.
A central aim of Achebe’s writing was to tell African stories from African perspectives, giving his characters and communities a depth often missing from colonial portrayals. That is part of what makes Perry’s 1965 copy especially fitting for an African studies collection