ALI, Muhammad: A Thirty-Year Journey. (Signed first edition)

With Howard L. Bingham. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. First edition, first printing. Large quarto. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt. Pictorial dust-jacket. Illustrated throughout with black-and-white photographic plates. An exceptionally fine copy.

A superb photographic chronicle of the life and career of Muhammad Ali, documented over more than three decades by his closest friend and trusted photographer, Howard L. Bingham. Widely regarded as the definitive visual record of Ali’s public and private life, the work combines iconic ringside imagery with rare, intimate moments away from the spotlight.

The photographs trace Ali’s journey from the early Cassius Clay years through the defining bouts of the heavyweight era — Liston, Frazier, Norton, Foreman — alongside pivotal moments in American social and political history, including Ali’s refusal of military induction, his relationship with Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad, and his re-emergence as a global cultural figure.

Introductions by Muhammad Ali and Lonnie Ali, with additional contributions from Bill and Camille Cosby, Jim Murray, Gordon Parks, George Plimpton, Alvin F. Poussaint, Budd Schulberg, Ralph Wiley and A. S. “Doc” Young, place the photographs in personal, sporting, and historical context.

Muhammad Ali: A Thirty-Year Journey is considered the benchmark photographic biography of Ali, unmatched in scope or intimacy. Copies are increasingly sought after by collectors of boxing history, sports photography, and African-American cultural history.

[WR sport]