Toni Morrison's first novel,

The Bluest Eye

, was published by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston in 1970 while Morrison was an editor for Random House in New York City. She remained at Random House until 1983, the year after the publication of her fifth novel

Beloved

. Morrison's inaugural novel received faint praise from most, though not all, reviewers, primarily because few of the reviewers for the well-known national publications understood the book. Reviews in small circulation publications such as

Black World

and

Freedomways

were notable exceptions. Nevertheless, as a first-time novelist Toni Morrison's notices in the

New York Times Book Review

and

The New Yorker

gave her national recognition that was invaluable for even the moderate success of her innovative novel. Morrison had embarked…

2068 words

Citation: Jimoh, A Yemisi. "The Bluest Eye". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 September 2003; last revised 20 March 2012. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1425, accessed 28 March 2024.]

1425 The Bluest Eye 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.