George Schuyler, a renowned and controversial black journalist of the Harlem Renaissance, and Josephine Cogdell, a blond, blue-eyed Texas heiress and granddaughter of slave owners, believed that intermarriage would "invigorate" the races, thereby producing extraordinary offspring. Their daughter, Philippa Duke Schuyler, became the embodiment of this theory. Able to read and write at the age of two and a half, a pianist at four, and a composer by five. Philippa was often compared to Mozart. But as an adult she mysteriously dropped out of sight, leaving America to wonder what had happened to the "little Harlem genius". Suffering the double sting of racial and gender bias. Philippa was forced to find recognition abroad. At the age of thirty-five, Philippa finally began to embark on a racial catharsis: she was just beginning to find herself when on May 9, 1967 her life was cut short in a helicopter crash.

The first authorized biography of Philippa Schuyler, Composition in Black and White draws on previously unpublished letters and diaries to reveal an extraordinary and complex personality.

"This enthralling. heartbreaking book restores to attention Philippa Schuyler....Thanks to Kathryn Talalay...for focusing on the Schuyler's story, researching it so energetically and telling it so sensitively". -- The New York Times Book Review

"This is as compelling as the best fiction". -- The Dallas Morning News