When Knopf eventually received the manuscript for “Mountain,” it appeared that its peripatetic author - who had lived abroad, mostly in Paris, since 1948 - had typed the story out on all sorts of typewriters and on many different kinds of stationery. Cole brought a few of his pieces to Knopf’s editor in chief, Harold Strauss, who contacted Baldwin’s agent and learned that he was at work on a novel.
And what Cole found in the emotionally charged writing were thoughts that sometimes - thrillingly - strained against its own gorgeous, literary, knowing style: Baldwin “read,” but from up high. Always on the lookout for fresh voices, the publicist read magazines like The New Leader, Commentary and The Nation, where, a few years earlier, essays and reviews by a man named James Baldwin had begun to appear with some frequency. Back then, the young James Baldwin - he was just 28 when “Mountain” came out - had a protector named William Cole, who was Knopf’s publicity director.
Knopf, who published his first novel, “ Go Tell It on the Mountain,” in 1953.
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