Song of Solomon was published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York, on 1 September 1977, in a first printing of approximately 15,000 copies priced at $9.95. It was Morrison’s third novel and her breakthrough — the first to feature a male protagonist, the first to achieve bestseller status, and the first to win a major prize (the National Book Critics Circle Award, 1978). It was also the first novel by a Black woman selected for the Book-of-the-Month Club since Richard Wright’s Native Son in 1940.
The Novel
Song of Solomon follows Macon “Milkman” Dead III from his birth in a Michigan city (clearly Detroit) in 1931 through his early thirties. Born into a prosperous but spiritually dead Black bourgeois family — his father is a ruthless landlord, his mother is withdrawn and strange, his sisters are trapped — Milkman drifts through young adulthood without purpose or identity. His surname itself (Dead) is the result of a bureaucratic error by a drunken Union soldier during Reconstruction — a perfect emblem of the novel’s theme: the violent erasure of African-American history and identity.
The novel pivots when Milkman travels south — ostensibly to recover gold his father believes is hidden in a Virginia cave, but actually to discover his family’s history. In Shalimar, Virginia, he finds the children’s song that encodes the myth of his great-grandfather Solomon, who “flew back to Africa” — escaping slavery by literally taking flight. The novel’s climax fuses realism and myth: Milkman leaps from a cliff, and the novel refuses to say whether he falls or flies.
Morrison weaves together epic quest narrative, family saga, political history (the Civil Rights movement runs through the background), and African-American folklore into a structure of enormous ambition and assurance. The prose is rich, musical, and deeply vernacular — drawing on Black speech patterns, blues and gospel rhythms, and oral storytelling traditions.
Key Characters
Pilate Dead — Milkman’s aunt, born without a navel, a bootlegger and free spirit who keeps her father’s bones in a hanging sack. She is one of Morrison’s greatest creations: a figure of earthy wisdom, uncompromising independence, and supernatural grace.
Guitar Bains — Milkman’s best friend, who joins the Seven Days, a secret organisation that retaliates for the murder of Black people by killing an equivalent number of whites. Guitar represents the political commitment that Milkman evades — and eventually becomes his hunter.
Collecting Song of Solomon
First edition (1977, Alfred A. Knopf): Approximately 15,000 copies, priced at $9.95.
Identification points:
- “First Edition” on the copyright page
- Number line ending in “2” (Knopf’s practice at the time — “2” indicates first trade printing)
- The borzoi colophon on the title page
- Red cloth boards (some copies in maroon)
First edition, first printing:
- Fine/Fine in dust jacket: $2,000–$6,000
- Near Fine in jacket: $800–$2,000
- Without jacket: $100–$300
Signed copies: $3,000–$8,000. Morrison signed regularly at events.
Value trajectory (2016–2026): Approximately 2× for fine copies in jacket. The novel’s place in the American canon is secure, and Morrison’s death in 2019 has stabilised prices at elevated levels.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the “song of Solomon”? A children’s rhyme preserved in the Virginia town of Shalimar that encodes the legend of Solomon (Milkman’s great-grandfather), who escaped slavery by flying back to Africa. The “song” preserves history that written records have erased.
Can Solomon really fly? The novel operates in a space between realism and myth — what critics call “magical realism,” though Morrison resisted the term. Whether Solomon literally flew or the legend is metaphorical is left deliberately unresolved.
How does this relate to Morrison’s other novels? Song of Solomon shares Morrison’s consistent themes — the damage of racism, the recovery of erased history, the tension between community and individual freedom — but its quest structure and male protagonist make it formally distinct from Sula or Beloved.