SACKS, Oliver. Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989.
8vo. Publisher's black cloth-backed grey boards; spine lettered in silver; in the original pictorial dust-wrapper (not price-clipped); pp. [viii], vii-xv, [i], 180, [ii]; author's gift inscription in black felt pen to front fly-leaf; faint mark to upper board; light rubbing to top edge and head and foot of wrapper; original bookshop stickers to spine and lower panel; internally bright and clean, a near fine copy in the wrapper.
First edition, inscribed by Sacks :
In this, a study into deafness, Sacks gives an account not only of the world of silence, but also of a world in which the visual is paramount. It begins with the history of deaf people in the United States, and their treatment throughout history. Later he explores visual language of the deaf–sign – which has only in the past decade been recognised fully as a language.
Sacks wrote of this work: “I had never thought about what it might mean to be deaf, to be deprived of language, or to have a remarkable language (and community and culture) of one’s own. Up to this point, I had mostly thought and written about the problems of individuals–here I was to encounter an entire community.”
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