Collected Non-fiction 1948 - 1985 
 
James Baldwin 
 
St. Martin's: 1985. First edition. Hardcover in a jacket. Octavo. Wrinkling and chipping along the top and bottom of the jacket. Minor soiling on the jacket. Slight shelf wear on the boards. Trace soiling on the attached endpapers at the back of the book. 690 pages. Very good. 
 
Bookshop talk and critical hot takes are easy to find, but here's one that won't easily leave you: good as it is, Baldwin's fiction is lapped by his skills as a searing and lyrical essayist. If you read James Baldwin the essayist, you will understand America. 
 
"The paradox of education is precisely this—that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated."