The first version of Richard Wright's autobiography Black Boy was published in 1945. The book was 228 pages. The 2006 edition of Wright's autobiography -- with a slightly expanded title Black Boy (American Hunger) -- is 448 pages and includes a foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Edward P. Jones. Over the decades, the book went through various editorial changes and extensions.

The publication and reprinting processes of Wright's autobiography includes a fascinating visual history, especially the different covers of the book. What follows are examples and descriptions of several of the covers.

- 1945 first edition. Harper and Row.
- 1951 edition. Signet.
- 1959 edition. Ace Books.
- 1963 edition. Signet.
- 1966 edition. Perennial Classic, Harper & Row.
- 1966 edition. Perennial Classic.
- 1970 album cover.
- 1977 American Hunger edition. Harper & Row.
- 1986 edition. Longman Imprint Books.
- 1989 edition. Perennial Library, Harper & Row.
- 1993 edition. HarperPerennial.
- 1998 edition. Perennial Classics.
- 2005 edition. HarperCollins.
- 2006 edition. HarperPerennial.
- 2008 edition. HarperPerennial Modern Classics.