Toni Morrison's Signed Copy of Jazz

February 09, 2024

Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison was born and raised in Lorain, Ohio about 12 miles north of Oberlin. In celebration of this luminary, who received both Pulitzer and Nobel prizes, the Ohio state legislature designated her birthday, February 18, “Toni Morrison Day”.

Our Conservatory Special Collections include a copy of Morrison’s Nobel Prize winning novel Jazz (1992) from the personal library of Milt Hinton. Her inscription to him appears on the half-title page. It is inscribed “To Milt Hinton. Many thanks. Toni Morrison.”

In the 1993 Nobel Prize press release, the book was acclaimed for using “a device which is akin to the way jazz itself is played. The book’s first lines provide a synopsis, and in reading the novel one becomes aware of a narrator who varies, embellishes and intensifies. The result is a richly complex, sensuously conveyed image of the events, the characters and moods.”

Where to view Jazz

• Visitors are welcome to see this signed copy on display in the Conservatory Library through February 29 (Series 15, The Milton J. and Mona C. Hinton Collection).