[Nobody Knows My Name] is confirmation that James Baldwin is one of America's finest writers. The essays are uneven; some are slight and dated already because of their subject, some simply deserve more thought than Baldwin has devoted to them. But in this book and in his earlier Notes of a Native Son he has frequently written with a combination of passion, insight and intelligence to which his prose is equal. What sets Baldwin apart from even the best of his contemporaries is that he is an unproclaimed moralist whose arguments and insights rest on traditional and, in the best sense, even conventional values. (pp. 288, 290)

James Finn, "Critics' Choices for Christmas: 'Nobody Knows My Name'," in Commonweal (copyright © 1961 Commonweal Publishing Co., Inc.; reprinted by permission of Commonweal Publishing Co., Inc.), Vol. LXXV, No. 11, December 8, 1961, pp. 288, 290.