Lightfoot, Sara Lawrence (Lawrence, Margaret Morgan)

Balm in Gilead: Journey of a Healer

ISBN: 020109312X
Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1988. First Edition, Fourth Printing. Hardcover. Inscribed & signed by Sara Lawrence Lightfoot. "In Balm in Gilead, Sara Lawrence Lightfoot, the MacArthur-prizewinning sociologist, tells her mother's amazing story with both candor and passion. From girlhood in rigidly segregated Vicksburg, MIssissippi, to a distinguished career as a child psychiatrist, Dr. Margaret Lawrence has overcome every obstacle facing black women in our time...This stirring portrait is also a mirror to an extraordinary black family, tracing its legacy of preaching, teaching, and healing, as well as a legacy of sorrow: the pain of racism, the destructive hierarchies of skin color and gender which pervade black as well as white society." (from front flap) The stirring, now-classic memoir-biography of Margaret Morgan Lawrence (1914-2019), the pioneering African-American psychiatrist & psychoanalyst, by her daughter Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (b. 1944), the acclaimed sociologist & prolific author. Hardcover in unclipped dust jacket, first edition, "Fourth Printing, March 1989" as stated on copyright page. Part of publisher's Radcliffe (College-sponsored) Biography Series depicting "...the lives of exraordinary women." (pg. ix) On the shorter title page, Lightfoot has hand-written & signed in black ink: "For Sandy,/ Growth and Creativity!/ (signed) Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (underline)." A most popular, extremely rewarding collectible in its fourth-rarest original form (issued early the year following first publication), with a warm & inspiring inscription by the distinguished author. Book in fine-verging-on-very-fine condition with only a vertical line of residue-rubbing across most of indent between spine & front cover (a probable slight flaw as issued); a touch of wear at edges & corners of front, back cover & spine; very light rubbing & moderate spotting to upper edge of text block; much less at side & lower edges of same. Interior very fine except for moderate-sized creases at upper edges/corners of two page leaves (pgs. 181-184, once-folded); very faint crease at following leaf (pgs. 185-186). Dust jacket fine with a bit of rubbing to front, back covers & spine; slight wear & some tiny bumps, creases at edges & corners of same & flaps with minimal loss of surface paper esp. at corners; very light horizontal waves, tiny scratches along spine. An extra handling fee will be added for shipping due to the weight of this item. Fine- Very Fine / Fine. [Item #5338]

Price: $250.00