Sidney Poitier
- Actor
Depicts
The collection includes Baldwin's 1968 Look profile of Sidney Poitier — his portrait of the most famous Black actor in Hollywood at the height of his stardom, and a prelude to the film criticism of The Devil Finds Work.
The Cross of Redemption
Everything James Baldwin published and never put in a book, gathered twenty-three years after he died: reviews from his early twenties, speeches, open letters, and one short story.
- 2010
- 308
About James Baldwin
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeA posthumous collection, edited by the novelist Randall Kenan and published by Pantheon in 2010. It gathers Baldwin's occasional writing from the 1940s to the 1980s — the book reviews he wrote in his early twenties, essays and speeches, two profiles, six public letters, five forewords written for other people's books, and "The Death of a Prophet", a short story from 1950. None of it had appeared in any of his own volumes.
The story, in more detail
Baldwin assembled his own non-fiction in 1985 as The Price of the Ticket, and that book plus the five essay collections it reprints account for the work he wanted kept. This is the remainder: pieces written to a deadline, for a magazine or a podium, and then left where they were published.[1]
The reviews are the surprise. Baldwin was reviewing books in his early twenties, before Go Tell It on the Mountain, and the voice is already the voice — impatient, unwilling to grant a book its own premises, and much funnier than the later essays let themselves be.[1]
"The Death of a Prophet", from 1950, is the only fiction in the volume. It is a fragment of the material that became his first novel, and the only place to read it.[1]
Randall Kenan, who edited it, was a novelist and a Baldwin scholar. He died in 2020.[1]
Themes and analysis
A language made his own
In “Why I Stopped Hating Shakespeare,” learning French changes Baldwin's sense of what English can carry. Distance from his first language reveals a difference between imitating its inherited forms and making it answer to his experience. Shakespeare becomes an ally in that task, alongside the Black musicians whose work had already transformed a hostile linguistic inheritance. The comparison refuses a choice between literary prestige and the expressive resources of Baldwin's own past. What he discovers in Shakespeare's bodily humor and rhythms helps him recognize qualities in the language that formed him, rather than escape or disown it.
The argument spoken aloud
The quoted opening of “The Artist's Struggle for Integrity” puts pressure on the speech's own title. Baldwin distrusts its elevated terms before asking what might give them substance. Integrity becomes a matter of repeated choices, not a distinction conferred by calling oneself an artist. His address moves between his own position and the audience's shared predicament, refusing to make the writer's difficulties an exceptional grievance. That movement gives the speech its ethical reach: the artist's work matters because it offers a way into responsibilities everyone faces, rather than an exemption from them.
Why we recommend it
The early reviews
Baldwin at twenty-two, reviewing other people's novels for money, already refusing to be polite. Nothing else in the shelf shows him this unguarded.
It is the only place for the 1950 story
"The Death of a Prophet" has never been collected anywhere else.
It completes the non-fiction
The Price of the Ticket is Baldwin's own selection and stops at 1985. Between the two books, the essays are effectively all in print.
What this book explores
Real people in this book
Timeline
1947
Baldwin, in his early twenties, is publishing book reviews in New York magazines. Several are collected here.
1950
"The Death of a Prophet" appears, three years before his first novel.
1985
Baldwin publishes The Price of the Ticket, his own selection of thirty-seven years of non-fiction.
1987
Baldwin dies at Saint-Paul-de-Vence.
2010
Pantheon publishes The Cross of Redemption, edited by Randall Kenan, gathering what none of the earlier books held.
Book editions
- Hardcover
- Pantheon Books
- 2010
- 9780307378828
- Paperback
- Vintage International
- 2011
- 9780307275967
Reader reviews
Readers may also like
The Price of the Ticket
Baldwin's own gathering of his non-fiction, which this volume is the complement to.
Read our take
Notes of a Native Son
The first collection, and where the reviewing voice in this book was heading.
Read our take
Go Tell It on the Mountain
The novel that grew out of the same material as "The Death of a Prophet", the one story here.
Read our takeThe Cross of Redemption: frequently asked questions
What is The Cross of Redemption?
A posthumous collection of James Baldwin's uncollected writing, published in 2010 and edited by the novelist Randall Kenan. It gathers essays, speeches, two profiles, six public letters, five forewords, more than a dozen book reviews and one short story, written between the 1940s and the 1980s and never included in any of Baldwin's own books.
Is any of it new material?
All of it had been published somewhere — in magazines, as speeches, or as introductions to other writers' books. What is new is that it had never been collected. Baldwin died in 1987 and had no hand in this volume.
How is it different from The Price of the Ticket?
The Price of the Ticket, published in 1985, is Baldwin's own selection of his non-fiction and reprints five of his essay collections in full. This book is the material that selection left out, including his earliest reviews and work written after 1985.
Does it contain fiction?
One story, "The Death of a Prophet", from 1950. It draws on the same Harlem church material as Go Tell It on the Mountain and is not collected anywhere else.
Who was Randall Kenan?
An American novelist and a scholar of Baldwin's work, who selected and arranged the contents of this volume. He died in 2020.
Is it a good place to start?
No. It is a book for readers who already know the voice, because much of it is occasional work written fast. Start with The Fire Next Time or Notes of a Native Son.
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document The Cross of Redemption, its publication, and its place in literary history.
2James Baldwin papers, 1936–1992 (Sc MG 936), finding aid
ArchiveSchomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public LibraryUsed forUsed for archival and bibliographic context surrounding The Cross of Redemption within Baldwin's papers and career.
3Chicago Public Library — James Baldwin Biography
WebsiteUsed forUsed for independent biographical and publication context for The Cross of Redemption.
4Baldwin in France
WebsiteNational Museum of African American History and CultureUsed forUsed to connect The Cross of Redemption to Baldwin's transatlantic life and intellectual development.
5Baldwin, James Arthur
WebsiteThe Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford UniversityUsed forUsed to verify James Baldwin's bibliography and place The Cross of Redemption within the broader chronology of James Baldwin's career.
6The Cross of Redemption — contents and Why I Stopped Hating Shakespeare excerpt
WebsiteeCampus / Vintage excerptUsed forPublic retailer excerpt of Why I Stopped Hating Shakespeare, read through its displayed ending, and contents confirming both analyzed pieces. No first-edition or whole-volume collation is claimed.
7James Baldwin on the Artist's Struggle for Integrity — selected primary passages
WebsiteThe Marginalian, 2016Used forBaldwin's primary opening passages from The Artist's Struggle for Integrity, as quoted by Maria Popova. The surrounding commentary and linked recording are not treated as a complete transcript.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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