biography

Hardcover. NY, Privately Printed, 1st, 1934, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Two hardcover volumes, original two-tone cloth (dark green spines and light green sides). Gilt titles and decorations. Top edge gilt. Memoir of a successful banker and financial businessman. Notable for his his World War 1 recollections and numerous accounts of sporting trips: trolling for lake trout and moose hunting in Quebec, dove shoots in Georgia, trout fishing and elk hunting in Yellowstone, duck shooting in Minnesota, salmon fishing in Newfoundland, grayling fishing in Yukon, black bass fishing in Canada, fishing for sailfish and dolphin off Florida. Clean bright set.

Hardcover. West Chester PA, Schiffer Publishing, 1st, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 128 pages illustrated in color and b&w. The story of the life and works of an American wildfowl artist. Lem's life is a tale of courage - of a man who overcame a withered arm, lack of formal education, cultural isolation, and severe illness to become one of the founders of American Wildfowl Art. This is a close look at how he and his brother, Steve, grew up together in the marshes along the Chesapeake Bay, how they subsisted as barbers and foragers, how they retained their independent spirits to create birds that pleased them - wildfowl art - while carvers around them were creating decoys just good enough for hunting ducks. Lem's work is described in pictures, accompanied by colorful comments and interesting insights by a collector who became one of the artist's closest friends. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Birmingham AL, Legal Classics Library, reprint, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, full black leather with ornate gilt design on cover. all edges gilt, ribbon marker, marbled endpapers, raised bands. This is a facsimile of the 1932 first edition. Considered a 'sophisticated country lawyer', Darrow remains notable for his wit; he was quoted as saying, 'The trouble with law is lawyers.' Here, his autobiography, together with the additional 59-pg. Darrow's Plea, written in his own defense to the jury that exonerated him of the charge of bribery at Los Angeles, August, 1912. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. NY, Dey St., 1st, 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 376 pages, b&w illustrations. This book is divided into five main parts, with a total of 24 chapters. In the Introduction, Grohl describes an epiphany he had when he realized how he wanted to age: "I would celebrate the ensuing years by embracing the toll they'd take on me." He also explains that his memory is triggered by sound, and his recollections of the events in his life are mostly centered around songs, albums, and bands that he was apart of. Clean, like-new copy.

Softcover. London, Virago, reprint, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 321 pasges, color illustrations. During childhood, Joanna Moorhead heard about a wild cousin called Prin who had fled their suffocatingly respectable family. When Joanna travelled to Mexico to find her, it was the start of a life-changing friendship, for her relative was none other than Leonora Carrington, the last surviving Surrealist. This book tells how, over tea and tequila, Leonora recalled her extraordinary life, her relationship with Max Ernst, her incarceration in an asylum, and her friendships with Picasso, Dali and Frida Kahlo.

Softcover. New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1st, 2010-11-01, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 110 pages, illustrated throughout in b&w. Clean, unmarked copy in excellent condition. The "nasty, negative, misanthropic" comic genius proves he has a sweet side.Cute little kittens, angels, and babies? Flowers, ice cream cones, and German boy bands? Coming from, supposedly, the creepiest and most pessimistic artist of his generation? Yes indeed, there is a "sweeter side" to R. Crumb. These delectable illustrations-whether depicting Bernie the Cat pawing for his master's affection, the timeworn beauty of a French village cul-de-sac, or a quiet night chez Crumb-wonderfully exemplify the many tender moments that have, until now, played second fiddle to the cult icon's more raunchy sketches. Now Crumb harkens back to his humble American beginnings as a Cleveland greeting card illustrator, when his innate knack for the grotesque had to be suppressed for the perennial appeal of "cute." The result is this cheery and blue-skied world, where readers of every conceivable personality type, age group, even sexual persuasion can finally enjoy the artist's momentary lapse from naughty to nice. Color and black-and-white illustrations throughout

Softcover. New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 110 pages, illustrated throughout in b&w. Clean, unmarked copy in excellent condition. The "nasty, negative, misanthropic" comic genius proves he has a sweet side.Cute little kittens, angels, and babies? Flowers, ice cream cones, and German boy bands? Coming from, supposedly, the creepiest and most pessimistic artist of his generation? Yes indeed, there is a "sweeter side" to R. Crumb. These delectable illustrations-whether depicting Bernie the Cat pawing for his master's affection, the timeworn beauty of a French village cul-de-sac, or a quiet night chez Crumb-wonderfully exemplify the many tender moments that have, until now, played second fiddle to the cult icon's more raunchy sketches. Now Crumb harkens back to his humble American beginnings as a Cleveland greeting card illustrator, when his innate knack for the grotesque had to be suppressed for the perennial appeal of "cute." The result is this cheery and blue-skied world, where readers of every conceivable personality type, age group, even sexual persuasion can finally enjoy the artist's momentary lapse from naughty to nice. Color and black-and-white illustrations throughout

Hardcover. NY, E.P. Dutton, 1st, 1937, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, cream color cloth with green lettering. A memoir of growing up with the author George W. Cable written by his daughter. 189 pages, frontis of Cable. Inscription on front flyleaf, otherwise clean. Light fading to cloth covers.

Hardcover. London, Frederick Warne, Revised Ed., 1968, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, price-clipped dust jacket, 173 pages. Illustrated with 8 color and 30 b&w plates. Although Beatrix Potter is known and loved by generations of children brought up on "Peter Rabbit" and others, her life began in great joylessness and solitude. Drawing was her once fascination and her creative genius was able to flourish in the loneliness and isolation of her early years. Despite the fame that her skill was later to bring, she nevertheless preferred to maintain her privacy and hide behind the persona of a Lakeland farmer. Margaret's Lane biography recounts, with reference to letters and photographs, Beatrix Potter's sad childhood, her struggle for independence, her ill-fated love affair and happy marriage. Clean copy.

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.

Hardcover. NY, Basic Books, 1st, 1978, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 275 pages. Translated from the French by Olivier Bernier. Preface by Virgil Thomson. The autobiography of a Jewish painter who fled from Bolshevik Russia to Spain, moved to France and who was imprisoned during WWWII by the Germans and who moved eventually to the U.S.

Hardcover. NY, E. P. Dutton, reprint, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. David Irving's The Trail of the Fox is the best work on Rommel ever written. The circumstances around Rommel's involvement with the attempt on Hitler's life, which is the most speculated aspect of Rommel's life, and how the Gestapo came to believe Rommel was involved, have not been made clear in most of the historiography on Rommel. Irving pieces together what really happened most effectively. There are so many strengths of this book, of which the greatest is probably the fact Irving had access to Rommel's dairy and many of his letters, which he got permission from the family to view. Other items he found in collections in the United States, England, and Germany. Since he worked on this in the 1970's he also was able to interview a number of German officers who were still alive that knew and served with Rommel. The whole work is the way historical research should be done; totally reliant on primary source material, and ignores secondary sources that often use conjecture or just repeat incorrect narratives from earlier books. Every source is from people who fought the war; Germans, Italians, British, French and American officers who were in these campaigns and had either first hand observation of Rommel or were major participants like Eisenhower, Churchill, Goebbels, etc. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 3rd pr., 1950, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, maroon cloth with gilt lettering on spine. 439 pages, b&w illustrations with fold-out map of Polo's travels in rear. First published in 1931, this is the 1950 third printing. None of the manuscripts which have come down to us represents the original form of Marco Polo's narrative, but it is clear that certain texts are closer to the lost original than others. Entrusted with the task of preparing a new Italian edition of Marco Polo, Benedetto discovered many unknown manuscripts. He carefully edited the most famous of the manuscripts (the Geographic text) and collated it with the other best known ones. * An invaluable index has been added to Aldo Ricci's of Benedetto's text, which includes all the identifications made in the Geographic text and also later editions by Marsden (1818), Pauthier (1865) and Yule (1871). * The difficulty of following Polo on his many journeys has also been simplified by the process of distinguishing between those places on his main route to China and his return journey by sea to Persia and those places which he visited during his stay in China and those he never visited at all. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, William Hodge and Co., 2nd pr., 1948, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth covers with gilt lettering on the spine, 384 pages, b&w illustrations. A full and definitive account of the three Oscar Wilde trials, introduced by barrister at Middle Temple, H. Montgomery Hyde, and the personal recollections of Sir Travers Humphreys, who was Wilde's junior counsel in the three trials.

Hardcover. NY, Doubleday, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 480 pages. A fascinating figure of English literary and political history, Radclyffe Hall was born in 1880 in Bournemouth, England. Hall suffered through an exceedingly unhappy childhood until her father's death. With her inheritance, Hall leased a house in Kensington and began to live the way she pleased. She started dressing in chappish clothes, called herself Peter, then John, and wrote her first collection of verse. She was a political reactionary, a reformed Catholic, a member of the Society for Psychical Research, fussy about food and obsessive about work. She got her pipes from Dunhill's, wore brocade smoking jackets, spats in winter, and had her hair cropped off at the barber's. Hall is most famous today for her book, The Well of Loneliness, which she wrote in 1928. A novel about lesbian love, the book caused an enormous scandal on its publication and it was suppressed both in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, where Hall was put on trial under the Obscene Publications Act.

Softcover. London, Tate Publishing, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 224 pages illustrated in color. J.M.W. Turner was a fascinating and enigmatic figure. Both astonishingly prolific and extraordinarily innovative, he is widely seen as the greatest British landscape painter of them all, anticipating and surpassing the Impressionists in his dramatic interpretations of the effects of light and color. "The Turner Book" goes beyond the usual interpretations of the artist, revealing the extraordinary self-belief and ambition that allowed him to continue steadfastly with his experimentation in the face of hostile critical attack. The book examines in detail key works and the techniques by which Turner realized them and features revealing extracts from his notebooks, travel journals and poetry. Beautifully illustrated with both famous and unknown works and ranging over the entire course of the artist's career, this is the essential guide to Turner's life and work. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Riverhead, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 349 pages. A heartwarming memoir describes growing up in Czechoslovakia during the 1970s as the child of dissidents involved with the failed Prague Spring uprising in a loving family--her mother, the disowned daughter of two Party elite parents; her inventor and cab driver father; her beautiful teenage sister; and her dog, a famed Czech TV star. Clean copy.

Athens GA, University Of Georgia Press, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 464 pages. Caroline Ferguson Gordon (1895-1981) was a notable American novelist and literary critic who, while still in her thirties, was the recipient of two prestigious literary awards, a 1932 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 1934 O. Henry Award . Offers the most complete and accurate portrait to date of the writer. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Wiley, 2nd pr., 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The long-awaited, untold, inside story of the rise of the legendary actor, singer, scholar, and activist. The first volume of this major biography breaks new ground. The greatest scholar-athlete-performing artist in U.S. history, Paul Robeson was one of the most compelling figures of the twentieth century.Now his son, Paul Robeson Jr., traces the dramatic arc of his rise to fame, painting a definitive picture of Paul Robeson's formative years. His father was an escaped slave; his mother, a descendent of freedmen; and his wife, the brilliant and ambitious Eslanda Cardozo Goode. With a law degree from Columbia University; a professional football career; title roles in Eugene O'Neill's plays and in Shakespeare's Othello; and a concert career in America and Europe, Robeson dominated his era. 383 pages, b&w illustrations. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Jonathan Cape, 1st, 1937, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth with gilt lettering on spine. Frontiepiece photograph of the author as Lord Beaconsfield. 392 pages. Autobiography dealing with the author's life up to the mid 1930s. He was the brother of A E Housman, and was well-known in his own right as a writer of plays, as well as being active in the women's suffrage campaign and in the pacifist movement. A prolific writer with around a hundred published works to his name, Housman's output eventually covered all kinds of literature from socialist and pacifist pamphlets to children's stories. He wrote an autobiography, The Unexpected Years (1937), which, despite his record of controversial writing, said little about his homosexuality, the practice of which was then illegal. Mild shelf wear. Clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Carroll & Graf, Softcover, 500 pages. A twentieth-century photographer, artist, writer and designer for more than fifty years, Cecil Beaton was at the center of the worlds of fashion, society, theater and film. This book brings together for the first time the never-before-published diaries from 1970 to 1980 and, unlike the six slim volumes of diaries published during his lifetime, these have been left uniquely unedited. Hugo Vickers, the executor of Beaton's estate and the author of his acclaimed biography, has added extensive notes that are as lively as the diary entries themselves. Here is the photographer for British and American Vogue, designer of the sets and costumes for the play and film My Fair Lady and the film Gigi, with a cast of characters from many worlds, at shooting parties in the English countryside, on yachts, at garden parties at Buckingham Palace, at costume balls in Venice, Paris or London. Clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Carroll & Graf, Softcover, 500 pages. A twentieth-century photographer, artist, writer and designer for more than fifty years, Cecil Beaton was at the center of the worlds of fashion, society, theater and film. This book brings together for the first time the never-before-published diaries from 1970 to 1980 and, unlike the six slim volumes of diaries published during his lifetime, these have been left uniquely unedited. Hugo Vickers, the executor of Beaton's estate and the author of his acclaimed biography, has added extensive notes that are as lively as the diary entries themselves. Here is the photographer for British and American Vogue, designer of the sets and costumes for the play and film My Fair Lady and the film Gigi, with a cast of characters from many worlds, at shooting parties in the English countryside, on yachts, at garden parties at Buckingham Palace, at costume balls in Venice, Paris or London. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Fordham University Press, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 234 pages. INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR on the half-title page. The writer Giuseppe Prezzolini said that Italian immigrants left behind tears and sweat but not "words," making their lives in America mostly in silence, their memories private and stories untold. In this innovative portrait of the Italian-American experience, these lives are no longer hidden. Ilaria Serra offers the first comprehensive study of a largely ignored legacy-the autobiographies written by immigrants. Here she looks closely at fifty-eight representative works written during the high tide of Italian migration. Scouring archives, discovering diaries, and memoirs in private houses and forgotten drawers, Serra recovers the voices of the first generation-bootblacks and poets, film directors and farmers, miners, anarchists, andseamstresses-compelled to tell their stories. Mostly unpublished, often thickly accented, these tales of ordinary men and women are explored in nuanced detail, organized to reflect how they illuminate the realities ofwork, survival, identity, and change.

Softcover. NY, Picador, 1st pbk, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 436 pages, color and b&w photos. It's 1983. A young Englishwoman arrives in Manhattan on a mission. Summoned in the hope that she can save Conde Nast's troubled new flagship Vanity Fair, Tina Brown is plunged into the maelstrom of competitive New York media. She survives the politics and the intrigue by a simple stratagem: succeeding. Here are the inside stories of the scoops and covers that sold millions: the Reagan kiss, the meltdown of Princess Diana's marriage to Prince Charles, the sensational Annie Leibovitz cover of a gloriously pregnant, naked Demi Moore. Written with dash and verve, the diary is also a sharply observed account of New York and London society. In its cinematic pages the drama, comedy and struggle of raising a family and running an 'it' magazine come to life. The irreverent diaries of Tina Brown's eight spectacular years as editor in chief of Vanity Fair. Clean, bright copy.