Hardcover. Briston RI, Herreshoff Marine Museum Press, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 126 pages, b&w illustrations. Memoir by one of the great American yacht & marine designers & builders. "This book is an insider's account of many years of work at the core of America's Cup contests". SIGNED BY HERRESHOFF on title page. Clean, in a bright dust jacket.
Hardcover. Boston, Little Brown, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 220 pages, b&w photos. The author was an actor, film editor, and director and this book is the sequel to his first book of memoirs, Growing Up in Hollywood.
Hardcover. NY, William Morrow, 3rd pr., 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 352 pages, b&w photos. The Autobiography pulls no punches: Curtis debunks myths of stardom and glamour with a raw, uncensored, street-honed New York bite. The scope of his memoirs includes: rooming with Marlon Brando in Hollywood in the late forties; a glamorous marraige to Janet Leigh in 1951, and the extraordianry days during his first flush of success.a fully detailed description of his descent into alcohol and cocaine addiction in the 1970s and 1980s; and his therapeutic, ongoing work as a visual artist. Clean, bright copy in a similar dust jacket.
Hardcover. NY, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 342 pages, b&w photos. Alexander Walker draws on the memories and anecdotes of her family, friends and fellow players as well as on his own conversations with Vivien Leigh just before her death to create a fascinating picture of a complex and unique woman. Clean copy in a very good dust jacket.
Hardcover. Swan Isle Press, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 180 pages. Spanish filmmaker Luis Bunuel (1900-83), known for his surrealist themes and unflinching social criticism, was an artist defined by intellectual ambition and controversy. An exile who produced some of his most famous work in Mexico and France during Franco's dictatorship, he left a complicated imprint on the creative landscape of the twentieth century and on generations of younger filmmakers--including his Mexican friend Claudio Isaac. Drawn from Isaac's personal papers, Midday with Bunuel: Memories and Sketches, 1973-1983 is an intimate and unconventional portrait of this cinematic icon--and memoir of Isaac's own artistic development.The text includes sketches, vignettes, and anecdotes from Isaac's notebooks, revealing his perspective first as a precocious boy and then as a young man. Isaac reflects on Bunuel's presence among a community of exiles, artists, actors, writers, and intellectuals in Mexico City. These are at once touching, perceptive, and critical glimpses into Bunuel's roles as husband and father, friend and colleague, surrealist, philosopher, and iconoclast during his last years. Throughout, Isaac's words reveal his deep admiration and affection for an older friend full of contradictions. Intimate photographs from the Isaac family archive complement the writing, and Bryan Thomas Scoular's careful translation makes this text available for the first time in English.
Softcover. Destiny Books, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 218 pages. The author wrote both the Superman and Batman comics as well as many other comic-book titles during the 1940s and 1950s. He is the author of two philosophical novels, No Such Mirrors and The Blowtop, which was described by the New York Times as the first conscious existentialist novel in America.
Hardcover. Oak Knoll Press, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 244 pages. Ottmar Mergenthaler is considered one of America's greatest inventors. The German immigrant revolutionized the printing and publishing industry with the invention of an automatic typesetting machine which became known as the Linotype. This remarkable machine made it possible to eliminate the laborious hand setting of lead type by allowing one Linotype operator to do the work of a half-dozen typographers.This compelling work chronicles Mergenthaler's struggles to get his invention accepted, and his battles with the typographical unions and with his financiers.
Hardcover. NY, Knopf, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 736 pages. A rich and revelatory biography of one of the crucial cultural figures of the twentieth century. Lincoln Kirstein's contributions to the nation's life, as both an intellectual force and advocate of the arts, were unparalleled. While still an undergraduate, he started the innovative literary journal Hound and Horn, as well as the modernist Harvard Society for Contemporary Art--forerunner of the Museum of Modern Art. He brought George Balanchine to the United States, and in service to the great choreographer's talent, persisted, against heavy odds, in creating both the New York City Ballet and the School of American Ballet. Among much else, Kirstein helped create Lincoln Center in New York, and the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut; established the pathbreaking Dance Index and the country's first dance archives; and in some fifteen books proved himself a brilliant critic of art, photography, film, and dance. This stunning biography, filled with fascinating perceptions and incidents, is a major act of historical reclamation. Utilizing an enormous amount of previously unavailable primary sources, including Kirstein's untapped diaries, Martin Duberman has rendered accessible for the first time a towering figure of immense complexity and achievement.
Softcover. NY, Harper Design, reprint, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 308 pages. Eleanor Dwight delivers the definitive biography of Diana Vreeland, the twentieth century's most influential fashion editor. Lavishly illustrated with exclusive photographs and personal materials from the legendary style maker's private collection, and featuring a new preface from Vogue's Andre LeonTalley, Diana Vreeland is an indispensible look at a grand dame of great couture. Lavishly illustrated with more than three hundred drawings and photographs, many by the best fashion photographers of the time: Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Irving Penn, Cecil Beaton, and Brassai. Here, too, are the trendsetters, artists, models, and celebrities with whom Vreeland worked and played, including Coco Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Hubert de Givenchy, Oscar de la Renta, Elsie de Wolfe, Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, and Jacqueline Kennedy.
Hardcover. Paris, Huillery, reprint, 1868, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, bound in half red calf over marbled boards. Frontispiece portrait, b&w engraved illustrations. Eugene Vidocq (1775-1857) was a French police officer and adventurer who rose in rank to become chief of a small, specialized detective force in Paris (the Police de Surete). He later organized a daring robbery which he was ironically put in charge of investigating. Eventually found out, he was dismissed from the police force and died in poverty and obscurity. First published 1n 1828. FRENCH TEXT.
Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 768 pages. One of the most influential singers and songwriters of all time, Sam Cooke was among the first to blend gospel music and secular themes--the early foundation of soul music. He was the opposite of Elvis: a black performer who appealed to white audiences, who wrote his own songs, who controlled his own business destiny. No biography has previously been written that fully captures Sam Cooke's accomplishments, the importance of his contribution to American music, the drama that accompanied his rise in the early days of the civil rights movement, and the mystery that surrounds his death. Bestselling author Peter Guralnick tells this moving and significant story, from Cooke's childhood as a choirboy to an adulthood when he was anything but. With appearances by Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, James Brown, Harry Belafonte, Aretha Franklin, Fidel Castro, The Beatles, Sonny and Cher, Bob Dylan, and other central figures of this explosive era, DREAM BOOGIE is a compelling depiction of one man striving to achieve his vision despite all obstacles--and an epic portrait of America during the turbulent and hopeful 1950s and 1960s. The triumph of the book is the vividness with which Peter Guralnick conveys the astonishing richness of the black America of this era--the drama, force, and feeling of the story.
Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 148 pages. This book celebrates the achievements of Alice Guy Blache (1873-1968), the first woman motion picture director and producer. From 1896 to 1907, she created films for Gaumont in Paris. In 1907, she moved to the United States and established her own film company, Solax. From 1914 to 1920, Guy Blache was an independent director for a number of film companies. Despite her immensely productive and creative career, Guy Blache's indispensable contribution to film history has been overlooked. She entered the world of filmmaking at its nascent stage, when films were seen primarily as a medium in the service of science or as an adjunct to selling cameras. Working with Gaumont cameramen and cameras and the new technical advances for the projection of film, she became one of the film pioneers ushering in the new era of motion pictures as a narrative form. Written by cinema history experts and curators, this handsome volume brings to light a critical new mass of Guy Blache's film oeuvre in an effort to restore her to her rightful place in film history.
Hardcover. Jefferson NC, McFarland & Co., 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, maroon cloth with gilt lettering. Part 1: A Korean Childhood in Japan, 1930-1944; Part 2: Growing Up in Korea, 1944- 1951. No Dust jacket issued.
Hardcover. NY, St. Martin's, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 333 pages. Now, in the first ever full-scale investigation of the artist, reporter Will Ellsworth-Jones pieces together the story of Banksy, building up a picture of the man and the world in which he operates. He talks to his friends and enemies, those who knew him in his early, unnoticed days, and those who have watched him try to come to terms with his newfound fame and success. And he explores the contradictions of a champion of renegade art going to greater and greater lengths to control his image and his work.
Hardcover. New York, Spiegel & Grau, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 720 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. A very clean, unmarked copy with only minor dust jacket wear. Black and white images throughout. A tight copy.
Hardcover. Howell Press, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 176 pages, b&w illustrations. Between 1917 and 1955, E.L. "Slonnie" Sloniger was a WWI fighter pilot, a barnstormer, a test pilot, a racer, an acrobatic pilot, and a commercial pilot. Here, "Fate is the Hunter's" Old Number One tells the story in his own words, as recorded by his son.
Hardcover. Chamberlain Bros., 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 256 pages. Presents a biography of the cross-dressing performer who was a friend and collaborator of Andy Warhol that incorporates a time line, collected interviews, and selections from Jackie Curtis' writings.
Softcover. NY, Norton, reprint, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 384 pages. A self-described "desert rat" who rocketed to fame at the age of twenty-two, Bill Mauldin used flashing black brush lines and sardonic captions to capture the world of the American combat soldier in World War II. His cartoon dogfaces, Willie and Joe, appeared in Stars and Stripes and hundreds of newspapers back home, bearing grim witness to life in the foxhole. We've never viewed war in the same way since. This lushly illustrated biography draws on private papers, correspondence, and thousands of original drawings to render a full portrait of a complex and quintessentially American genius.92 illustrations
Softcover. NY, Oxford University Press, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 192 pages. Dr. Seuss's infectious rhymes, fanciful creatures, and roundabout plots not only changed the way children read but imagined the world. And to Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, Green Eggs and Ham,The Cat and the Hat, these and other classics have sold hundreds of millions of copies and entertained children and adults for decades.fter graduating from Dartmouth, Theodor Geisel used his talents as an ad-man, political provocateur, and social satirist, gradually but irrevocably turning to children's books. Theodor Geisel tells the unlikely story of this remarkable transformation. In this compact and engrossing biography, Donald Pease reveals the evolution of Dr. Seuss's creative persona while offering an honest appraisal of his life. The book also features many of Dr. Seuss's lesser-known illustrations, including college drawings, insecticide ads, and wartime political cartoons--all of which offer a glimpse of his early artistic style and the visual origins of the more famous creatures that later populated his children's books.As Pease traces the full arc of Dr. Seuss's prolific career, he combines close textual readings of many of Dr. Seuss's works with a unique look at their genesis to shed new light on the enduring legacy of America's favorite children's book author.
Hardcover. Los Angeles, Ward Ritchie Press , 1st, 1965, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 224 pages, b&w illustrations. Story of a real sailor, Capt. Barney Burnett, aboard the four-masted bark Astral. The ship is smashed and dismasted. at Cape Horn. The crew laboriously clear away the wreckage, rerig the shattered masts, and sail on to San Francisco through the teeth of the gale. Much related ephemeral material laid-in, including correspondence by Burnett.
Softcover. Rutland, VT, Geo Chalmers Co., Inc, 1st Edition, 1924, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 21 pages. Softcover. Commemorative pamphlet. B/w labeled illustrations ("Photo-Gravures") throughout. String bound with light blue string(see image). Tanning and other agewear throughout. Front cover has small tear at bottom left (see image). Also included: official Certificate of Membership to the "Home Town Coolidge Club" dated August 15, 1924. Published to commemorate President (1923-29) Calvin Coolidge's roots in Vermont.
Hardcover. London, Harrap, 1st, 1976, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 200 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Light soil on top page block, otherwise clean, tight copy. Moderate chipping/rubbing to dust jacket edges now covered in plastic protective sleeve.
Hardcover. Philadelphia, His Children, 1st, 1853, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 645 pages. Hardcover in calf. Red title label on spine with gilt lettering. Heavy foxing to pages, abrasions to leather. Tight copy. Moderate soil.
Hardcover. New York, W.W. Norton, 2nd, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 627 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, tight copy with minor wear to edges. Color pictures in center.
Hardcover. New York, Farrar, Straus Giroux, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 340 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, tight copy.
Hardcover. New York, Penguin Press, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 238 pages. Hardcover with dust Jacket. Clean, tight copy with minor wear to edges.
Hardcover. London, Argus Books, 1st, 1930, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 391 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. B&w illustrations by Frank Pape. Dust jacket faded on spine, chipped. Cover boards have minor wear to black covers. Gilt lettering. Numbered 1490/1500 American copies. Internally good, and over all clean tight copy.
Softcover. New York, Simon and Schuster, 5th pr., 1974, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 221 pages. Softcover with minior wear to paper wrappers. Gutter glue slightly dry, cracking on rear hinge and page 120. Otherwise clean. Cover features Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Hardcover. New York, Harper & Row, 1st, 1974, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 217 pages. Hardcover with price-clipped dust jacket. Clean, tight copy. Scarce biography of Robeson by Hamilton, a noted African-American children's book author.
Hardcover. New York, Viking Press, 1st, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 307 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Light edge wear to dust jacket. Previous owner's bookplate on end paper.
Softcover. Seattle, WA, Fantagraphics Books, 2nd pr., 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 68 pages. Softcover with light wear to paper wrappers. Black and white illustrations by Gorey. Tight, clean copy.
Hardcover. New York, Harmony Books, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 346 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, tight copy. Black and white pictures throughout.
Softcover. Maryland, Scraecrow Press, rep, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 209 pages. Softcover with light wear to wrappers. Clean, tight copy. Some black and white photos in center.
Hardcover. New York, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1st, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 396 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. SIGNED BY AUTHOR on half-title page. Clean, tight copy with minor wear to covers and dust jacket.
Hardcover. New York, Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1st, 1935, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 255 pages. Hardcover with chipped dust jacket. SIGNED BY AUTHOR AND CHARLES LINDBERGH ON TITLE PAGE. Maps by Charles Lindbergh. Dust jacket has moderate tears and chipping aling spine.
Hardcover. London, Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans & Roberts, 1st, 1857, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 286 pages. Hardcover with marbled covers and page block decoration, gilt lettering on spine. Previous owner's bookplate on front end paper. Previous owner's name on title page. Ex-Library with usual stamping and embossed seal on preliminary pages.
Hardcover. New York, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1st, 1922, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 131 pages. Hardcover with scarce dust jacket. Light edgewear to covers, and pages. Light foxing throughout. Tight copy.
Hardcover. London, Sampson Low Son & Co, 1st, 1860, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 492 pages. Hardcover with 3/4 leather spine and marbled surfaces on all sides. First English edition published same year as first American edition. A clean, tight copy. moderate chipping to cover edges. and some rips to dry leather. Gilt title paste-down gone from spine.
Hardcover. MI, Clarke Historical Library, 1st, 1976, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 225 pages. Hardcover with orange fabric covers. Clean, tight copy with minor rubbign to edges. Black and white pictures throughout.
Hardcover. New York, Little, Brown and Company, 2nd pr., 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 503 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, tight copy. From The Gashlycrumb Tinies to The Doubtful Guest, Edward Gorey's wickedly funny and deliciously sinister little books have influenced our culture in innumerable ways, from the works of Tim Burton and Neil Gaiman to Lemony Snicket. Some even call him the Grandfather of Goth. But who was this man, who lived with over twenty thousand books and six cats, who roomed with Frank O'Hara at Harvard, and was known -- in the late 1940s, no less -- to traipse around in full-length fur coats, clanking bracelets, and an Edwardian beard? An eccentric, a gregarious recluse, an enigmatic auteur of whimsically morbid masterpieces, yes -- but who was the real Edward Gorey behind the Oscar Wildean pose? He published over a hundred books and illustrated works by Samuel Beckett, T.S. Eliot, Edward Lear, John Updike, Charles Dickens, Hilaire Belloc, Muriel Spark, Bram Stoker, Gilbert & Sullivan, and others. At the same time, he was a deeply complicated and conflicted individual, a man whose art reflected his obsessions with the disquieting and the darkly hilarious. Based on newly uncovered correspondence and interviews with personalities as diverse as John Ashbery, Donald Hall, Lemony Snicket, Neil Gaiman, and Anna Sui, Born to Be Posthumous draws back the curtain on the eccentric genius and mysterious life of Edward Gorey.
Hardcover. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 4th, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 402 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Remainder mark on bottom of page block. Otherwise, clean, tight copy with minor wear to edges.
Hardcover. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 687 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Remainder mark on page block, otherwise clean, tight copy. Minor, if any, wear to covers.
Hardcover. New York, New York Review Books, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 448 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. SIGNED BY AUTHOR ON TITLE PAGE. Black and white photos in center. Two pages wrinkled and stuck together in the middle of picture pages. Otherwise tight.
Softcover. US, Somogy Art Publishers , 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 320 pages. Softcover with little to no wear on edges. Still in publisher's shrinkwrap. Bringing the famed Parisian illustrator to light, this biography centers on Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, who studied at the prestigious Royal Academy but failed to win the coveted Prix de Rome. The study relates that the subject reacted to this disappointment by throwing aside all hopes of a traditional artistic career and hastening out into the thoroughfares of Paris to sketch everything in sight, living an errant, bohemian existence and succumbing increasingly to an obsession with drawing. Detailed and engaging, this recollection demonstrates that, despite his personal eccentricities, Saint-Aubin was employed as an artist all his life.
Hardcover. London, Thames & Hudson, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 79 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Illustrated by Richard Bentley, William Blake, and Kathleen Hale. Clean, tight copy.
Hardcover. New York, Playbill/ Applause Thetre& Cinama Books, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 357 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, tight copy. Minor wear to dust jacket. Minor rubbing to top spine. Light soil on rear. This is the ultimate backstage tour of Broadway! AT THIS THEATRE tells the complete history of Broadway in the 20th century, theatre by theatre. This gorgeous book is now updated, revised and with a larger format, covering 1900 to 2001. PLAYBILL's columnist, Louis Botto, along with Robert Viagas, opens the doors and lets readers explore the 40 active Broadway theatres in New York. From the conception and design of the buildings, to their original creators, and on to the theatres' transformation, often under duress, from legitimate houses to vaudeville and Burlesque, to movie houses and then back to their original purpose, this book captures the magical world of Broadway. It is a complete and authoritative history that only Botto, the curator of PLAYBILL's incomparable 116-year-old archives, can tell.
Hardcover. New York, Horizon Press, 1st, 1964, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Non-paginated. Hardcover with dust jacket. Moderate wear to dust jacket with fraying, chipping on corners. Small chunck missing on rear dust jacket. Clean, tight copy. Black and white photos throughout.
Hardcover. Baltimore, MD, James Hopkins University Press, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 443 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, tight copy with little to no wear to edges.
Record # 369087
Price: $20.00
Out-of-Print Biographies & Memoirs
The biography section gathers used, rare, and out-of-print lives, memoirs, and personal histories. Subjects run from music and politics to art and exploration, along with regional and family histories. Titles include Max Jones and John Chilton's Louis: The Louis Armstrong Story, 1900-1971 and Enid Mallory's Coppermine: The Far North of George M. Douglas.
Signed and inscribed copies appear regularly, among them Shimon Peres's Battling for Peace: A Memoir and The World of Owen Gromme. You'll also find personal accounts such as Shirley Temple's own diary, in editions ranging from reading copies to collectible hardcovers, each described down to its inscriptions and condition.
Because these are used and rare books, condition and availability vary by copy. Order a life story online.