biography

Softcover. Columbia SC, University of South Carolina Press, reprint, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Foftcover in pictorial wraps, 212 pages with index. Belle W. Baruch (1899-1964) could outride, outshoot, outhunt, and outsail most of the young men of her elite social circle-abilities that distanced her from other debutantes of 1917. Unapologetic for her athleticism and interests in traditionally masculine pursuits, Baruch towered above male and female counterparts in height and daring. While she is known today for the wildlife conservation and biological research center on the South Carolina coast that bears her family name, Belle's story is a rich narrative about one nonconformist's ties to the land. In Baroness of Hobcaw, Mary E. Miller provides a provocative portrait of this unorthodox woman who gave a gift of monumental importance to the scientific community. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1st, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 366 pages. Though Bartolomeo Scala has long intrigued historians, he is a figure whose importance has only recently been appreciated. In Alison Brown's biography Scala emerges as a man of more ability and character than anyone has imagined him to be. We begin to understand why he was employed as chancellor for the almost unrivaled period of thirty-two years. Ms. Brown's study is not only the first extensive treatment of Scala's life but also a significant contribution to our knowledge of Italian Renaissance history and of the contrast between theory and practice in Medicean government. Blank bookplate on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott, 1st, 1964, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 216 pages. Hardcover with price-clipped dust jacket. Dust jacket shows chipping, and wear on edges. Covered with plastic sleeve. Previous owner's name on front fly leaf,otherwise clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1st, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 316 pages. "A manager's-eye view of the agonies and ecstasies of the '85 Mets--from way inside!. 'Bats,' written with bestselling coauthor Peter Golenbock, reveals Johnson's stinging opinions on the state of the game, on umpires, opposing players, other managers, and the press." Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, Random House, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 350 pages. SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR. Gilt title on spine and design on front cover board. B/w illustrations throughout. Front flaps very lightly yellowed at top, otherwise clean inside and out. previous bookseller tag on back. From the dust jacket front flap: "As we follow Peres from his ancestral home in Poland to Israel, from the youth village of BenShemon to Kibbutz Alumot, from the youth movement leader to prime minister, we are introduced both to a man and to a nation."

Hardcover. London, Peter Owen , 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 256 pages. An acclaimed and most unusual biography of Baudelaire, showing him ensnared by his passions for poetry, prostitutes, and drugs.A crucial link between romanticism and modernism, Charles Baudelaire is a pivotal figure in European literature and thought. His influence on modern poetry is immense. In the English language, where his literary reputation is less well known, it is his link with drug culture that gives him contemporary resonance. It is commonly known that Baudelaire used opium. Many writers have described him as being addicted to the drug, but none of his biographers, Frank Hilton argues, has fully understood the effect of opiate addiction on the personality and, in the case of Baudelaire, the extent to which it damaged his life and work. In this original contribution to Baudelaire studies Hilton contends that the drug is at the root of all Baudelaire's problems and in particular--something that constantly tormented him--his chronic inability to apply himself to any prolonged creative work. Unquestionably, there is significantly more to Baudelaire than his opium addiction. But a proper awareness of what it did to the poet helps to illuminate those puzzling aspects of his life and behavior that were not previously understood. Written with the general reader in mind, Baudelaire in Chains will give those who know little or nothing about him a comprehensive picture of his life. To those who know a great deal it will present him in an unexpected light.

Hardcover. New York, Prestel, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 496 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Color illustrations throughout. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Lincoln NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 146 pages, in a lightly worn dust jacket. Bead on an Anthill is the story of a Lakota girl's experiences growing up in Nebraska and on the Pine Ridge Reservation in the 1960s and 1970s. Raised in a home without books, Delphine Red Shirt relied on family and friends as her "books" and wove their stories into her own. Like her ancestors, she felt a powerful connection to the openness of the Plains. She participated in coming-of-age ceremonies and learned the special rules for stringing beads together and the messages conveyed by hairstyles. At the same time, Red Shirt became increasingly aware of the distance between her world and that of her ancestors.

Hardcover. NY, Thomas Dunne Books, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 270 pages, b&w illustrations. Augustus Owsley Stanley III, better known by his nickname, Bear, was one of the most iconic figures in the cultural revolution that changed both America and the world during the 1960s.Owsley's high-octane rocket fuel enabled Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters to put on the Acid Tests. It also powered much of what happened on stage at Monterey Pop. Owsley turned on Pete Townshend of The Who and Jimi Hendrix. The shipment of LSD that Owsley sent John Lennon resulted in The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour album and film.Convinced that the Grateful Dead were destined to become the world's greatest rock 'n' roll band, Owsley provided the money that kept them going during their early days. As their longtime soundman, he then faithfully recorded many of the Dead's greatest live performances and designed the massive space-age system that came to be known as the Wall of Sound.Award-winning author and biographer Robert Greenfield's definitive biography of this Grateful Dead legend masterfully takes us through Owsley's incredible life and times to bring us a full picture of this fascinating man for the first time. The definitive biography of the reclusive and mysterious Grateful Dead benefactor and renowned LSD chemist without whom the counterculture would never have been born. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, Longmans, Green and Co., Reprint, 1912, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 299 pages, illustrated throughout with photos in b&w. This is an abridged translation by Hugh S.R. Elliot and A.G. Thacker.Introduction by P. Chalmers Mitchell. Red cloth, gilt decorations to front and spine. Slight wear along edges and spine, light soiling to covers, faint foxing to top edge, front hinge cracked, else a very neat copy.

Hardcover. NY, Scala, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 208 pages. Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road was a touchstone for a generation and the centrepiece of the Beat movement in literature and art. This new book examines Kerouac's life and career, and accompanies a major exhibition at The New York Public Library to celebrate the 50th anniversary of On the Road's publication in 1957. Kerouac's achievement as both a literary and cultural figure is traced, including his innovations in narrative techniques and in character development. His counterculture vision is explored, showing his image as a seer and sage who wanted to save America from its obsession with consumerism, the inhibition of sexuality and other conventional bourgeois pieties. The author also explores Kerouac's relationships with Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and other Beats, as well as the Beat movement in general. The book is heavily illustrated, with material from the extensive Kerouac literary archive owned by The New York Public Library, including typescript drafts of On the Road.

Hardcover. NY, Viking, 1st, 1980, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover. Edited, with text by James Danziger. Black & white photos. 256 pages. Bright, unclipped dust jacket. The best Beaton photos of all genres, fashion, society, travel and war pictures, in the most extensive collection of his work ever published.

Hardcover. NY, Wynwood Press, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in an unclipped dust jacket with light fading to spine. Biography of the comedian from Toronto who married a Title in England, went on to become an international star as a comedienne on the stage and screen. She experienced the death of her only son in WWII. The author was a friend and confidant until Lillie's death at the age of 90. Clean copy.

Softcover. South Yorkshire, Pen and Sword, reprint, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 208 pages, b&w illustrations. Even before she emerged from the cot in her nursery Beatrix Potter was up against it. With her prodigious memory she recalled being placed under the tyranny of a cross old nurse who introduced her to witches, fairies and the creed of the terrible John Calvin. More sadness followed. She had no siblings of her own age and was brought up virtually in isolation. She was afflicted by two most unpleasant illnesses one of which has not previously been recognized - and she found herself often at odds with her mother. She also had a love affair that ended tragically.

Hardcover. New York, Random House, Incorporated, 1st Am, August 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 362 pages. Light edgewear, small closed tear to dust jacket. Light smudges on fore-edge. Else a clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st, 1949, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 374 pages. Hardcover. Dust jacket with short tape repaired tears along edges, fading to spine. Clean, unmarked pages.

Hardcover. NY, Bloomsbury Publishing, 1st US, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover un a bright dust jacket, 534 pages, b&w photos. Patricia Highsmith - author of Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr Ripley - had more than her fair share of secrets. During her life, she felt uncomfortable about discussing the source of her fiction and refused to answer questions about her private life. Yet after her death in February 1995, Highsmith left behind a vast archive of personal documents which detail the links between her life and her work. Drawing on these intimate papers, together with material gleaned from her closest friends and lovers, Andrew Wilson has written the first biography of an author described by Graham Greene as the 'poet of apprehension'. Wilson illuminates the dark corners of Highsmith's life, casts light on mysteries of the creative process and reveals the secrets that the writer chose to keep hidden until after her death. Paper tanning slightly, clean copy.

Softcover. NY, The Citadel Press, 3rd pr., 1975, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 256 pages. illustrated in black-and-white featuring many stills. The book includes a biography, and a filmography.

Hardcover. Norfolk, Ct, New Directions, 1st, 1964, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 234 pages. Light foxing to end papers, top edge and dust jacket. Light sun-fade to spine, else a clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. New York, Rizzoli, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 256 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Very clean, like new copy, still in publishers shrink wrap, although has a slight tear in shrink wrap on bottom edge. Remainder mark on bottom edge of text block. Otherwise tight copy. Color and black & white photographs throughout. International supermodel Cindy Crawford presents her own personal visual autobiography, the first book to chronicle her life and career, featuring some of her most memorable images.

Hardcover. NY, Dutton, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 496 pages. Dr. Seuss is a classic American icon. Whimsical and wonderful, his work has defined our childhoods and the childhoods of our own children. The silly, simple rhymes are a bottomless well of magic, his illustrations timeless favorites because, quite simply, he makes us laugh. The Grinch, the Cat in the Hat, Horton, and so many more, are his troupe of beloved, and uniquely Seussian, creations.Theodor Geisel, however, had a second, more radical side. It is there that the allure and fasciation of his Dr. Seuss alter ego begins. He had a successful career as an advertising man and then as a political cartoonist, his personal convictions appearing, not always subtly, throughout his books--remember the environmentalist of The Lorax? Geisel was a complicated man on an important mission. He introduced generations to the wonders of reading while teaching young people about empathy and how to treat others well. Agonizing over word choices and rhymes, touching up drawings sometimes for years, he upheld a rigorous standard of perfection for his work. Geisel took his responsibility as a writer for children seriously, talking down to no reader, no matter how small. And with classics like Green Eggs and Ham, and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Geisel delighted them while they learned. Suddenly, reading became fun.

Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton & Company, 1st, 2024, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly rubbed dust jacket, 560 pages, b&w illustrations. In this first major biography since Fitzgerald's death, music historian Judith Tick draws on deep archival research, family interviews and newly available recordings and concert footage to show how Fitzgerald fused a Black vocal aesthetic with mainstream popular repertoire to revolutionise American music. From Fitzgerald's first audition at the Apollo Theatre to swing-era success at the Savoy, Tick shows how this 'girl singer' broke new ground: as a female bandleader, as a ground-breaking bebop improviser and as the arbiter of the American canon with her Song Book recordings. Yet even as she electrified concert halls and sold millions of records, jazz critics belittled her as 'naive'. Tick reveals instead an ambitious risk-taker with a stunningly diverse repertoire, whose exceptional musical spontaneity (often radically different on stage than in the studio) made her a transformational artist. Remainder dot to top edge otherwise a clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Abbeville Press, 1st, 1991, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 397 pages, illustrated in b&w and color. In this thoughtful and thought-provoking art historical study, Peters first traces strands of Art Nouveau and Symbolist theory in the art of Georgia O'Keeffe. She then discusses other influences, from Arthur Dow as teacher to Paul Strand as photographer and friend. But by far the most sustained study in the text is the relationship between O'Keeffe's painting and the photography and philosophy of her husband, Alfred Stieglitz. Peters argues lucidly and always in accessible language for O'Keeffe's emergence as a great and deeply individual artist while illuminating these many influences and illustrating her points with lavish use of excellent reproductions. Clean copy.

Softcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 232 pages. "Professor DeNora's achievement in placing Beethoven, and the reception of Beethoven's music, in social context is all the more impressive because it goes so much against the grain of conventional habits of thought. In illuminating how changing social institutions created opportunities for Beethoven to gain contemporary and posthumous recognition, and, in so doing, created new forms for thinking and talking about musical achievement-the author at once provides fresh insights into the institutional origins of 'classical' music and offers an exemplary contribution to the sociological study of the arts." Clean copy.