Go Tell It on the Mountain was widely praised at its publication and since. It received favorable reviews in The New York Times,[19] The Virginia Quarterly Review,[32] The Hudson Review,[33] and Phylon,[34] among others.
Writing a decade later, Wallace Graves noted in a highly critical essay, that "when the book was reviewed in the summer of 1953, critics were most generous in praise, and except for Anthony West in The New Yorker ... Baldwin was welcomed almost carte blanche as a brilliant young novelist of great promise."[35]
It is generally regarded as Baldwin's best novel[36][15] and as one of the great African American novels of the 20th Century.[12] In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Go Tell It on the Mountain 39th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Time included the novel on its list of the 100 best English-language novels released from 1923 to 2005.[2] Publisher Franklin Library included it in its "100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature" collection published from 1976-1984 for the American Bicentennial.[37]
The novel is regularly assigned as part of curricula in high schools and colleges. However, its assignment has also aroused controversy. In 1988, a teacher in Prince William County, Virginia, offered the book as a ninth-grade summer reading option. Parents challenged the book because it is "rife with profanity and explicit sex".[38] In 1994, the book was challenged in Hudson Falls, New York, after a teacher had assigned the book as required reading. Parents challenged the book because of "recurring themes of rape, masturbation, violence, and degrading treatment of women".[38]
