James Arthur Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York, on August 2, 1924, and died in Saint-Paul de Vence, France, on December 1, 1987. A Black man celebrated as a brilliant public intellectual, he was direct and uncompromising about the truth as he experienced it. As essayist, novelist, playwright, poet, and civil rights activist, he used his pen to express the anger, pain, and rage of twentieth-century Black American life. He was a trailblazer for the Queer community, weaving elements of his sexual experiences throughout his writings and living openly as a gay man during times of extreme homophobia. His work continues to inspire each generation that encounters it.

This exhibition features Baldwin’s books, essays, and plays, drawn primarily from the collection of George Bixby [1934- 2023], a New York bookseller, collector, publisher, and bibliographer. While not comprehensive, the collection Bixby assembled contains remarkable depth, offering not only first editions, but proofs, advance review copies, alternate covers, foreign editions, and contributions to magazines and anthologies. Bixby’s dedicated collecting enables a deeper understanding of an author who still lacks a comprehensive published bibliography.

George Bixby’s James Baldwin collection arrived in Cornell University Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections in 2024. This is the first time elements of Bixby’s collection have appeared on exhibition.