biography

Hardcover. NY, Chartwell, 2000, Book: N, Hardcover, 448 pages. Virtually every structure that Wright built is represented in this extensive survey of his life's work. His genius at architectural design enable him to work out extremely complex buildings in his head and translate them on to paper in a matter of hours, as the famous story of his design presentation of Falling Water illustrates. His work continues to draw great admiration and interest to this day. His often tempestuous and sometimes tragic life and career are given full coverage in this book. Hundreds of photos, both archival and recent chart his amazing work and influence on all who followed. This concise consideration of Wright's life and work not only offers new insights into the character of this complex, powerful and at all times confident personality, but also the architectural legacy he left behind and which exists to this day in the vast number of homes and public buildings photographed mainly by the author himself.

Hardcover. Lanham MD, Lyons Press , 1st, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 300 pages. James M. Cain was among the prominent member of the "hard-boiled" school of writing that characterized the 1930s and 1940s, one of the masters of the genre that included Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. His novels became such popular film noir classics as The Postman always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, and Mildred Pierce, and his 1937 novel Serenade boldly portrayed its hero as a bisexual. Cain also taught journalism at various colleges in Maryland, wrote editorials for the New York World, and was for a brief time managing editor at The New Yorker. This is the first biography of James M. Cain written with the full cooperation of the late novelist's family.

Softcover. NY, New York University Press, 1st pbk, 1978, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 272 pages. With bibliography and index. A complete biography of Dahlberg's life and career with an examination of the writings. Contains fourteen illustrations. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Crown Publishing, 1st, 2024, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Charting the course of her remarkable life and career, MacLaine shares both early memories (her childhood with her brother, Warren Beatty; her decision to leave for New York City at age sixteen; her early work dancing on Broadway) as well as remembrances of her days in the public eye (campaigning for George McGovern, traveling to meet political luminaries, starring in legendary film roles, and developing an interest in spirituality). Along the way, readers gain greater insight into figures such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bob Fosse, Jack Nicholson, the Dalai Lama, Fidel Castro, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and many more. Whether she's sharing what advice Elvis Presley asked her for, how she consoled close friend Elizabeth Taylor after the death of her husband, or which head of state she discussed UFOs with, MacLaine offers her most visual and delightful book yet, giving readers an unprecedented glance into a life like no other. Profusely illustrated in b&w from her personal photo collection. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Dodd Mead, 3rd pr., 1943, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, bright red cloth stamped in black. Endpapers map, b&w photographs. 410 pages. The widow of Carl Akeley, naturalist, tells the story back of the exhibits for which he was responsible in the Natural History Museum in New York. This is virtually a biography, with that as a focus; it is a record of the uphill struggle to get the chance to do the thing for which he was gifted and trained; the experiences securing his speciments, adventures in the wilderness, African jungles, the Belgian Congo, the Uganda frontier -- and the immense concentration on details to get the exhibits together and to present them with complete fidelity. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Washington DC, National Gallery of Art , 1st, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards with blue cloth spine. In 1860 James McNeill Whistler and Joanna Hiffernan met and began a significant professional and personal relationship. Hiffernan posed as a model for many of Whistlers works, including his controversial Symphony in White paintings, a trilogy that fascinated and challenged viewers with its complex associations with sex and morality, class and fashion, academic and realist art, Victorian popular fiction, aestheticism and spiritualism. This luxuriously illustrated volume provides the first comprehensive account of Hiffernan's partnership with Whistler throughout the 1860s and 1870s a period when Whistler was forging a reputation as one of the most innovative and influential artists of his generation. A series of essays discusses how Hiffernan and Whistler overturned artistic conventions and sheds light on their interactions with contemporaries, including Gustave Courbet, for whom she also modeled. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. NY, Knopf , 1st, 1976, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, price-clipped dust jacket. The author's first book about growing up in Stockton, California with her immigrant parents from a small peasant village in China.

Hardcover. London, Methuen, reprint, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 256 pages illustrated in color and b&w. Ernest Howard Shepard was an English artist and book illustrator, best remembered for his charming illustrations of the beloved anthropomorphic animals in The Wind in the Willows and Winnie-the-Pooh. This fascinating study of Shepard, detailing his childhood, education and artistic development, is richly illustrated throughout with his works. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Arco Publishing , 1st, 1978, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover. Profusely illustrated throughout, some color. 244 pages. A visual survey of much of Adam's work, provides ample material for a critical appraisal of the development of Adam as architect and designer.

Hardcover. Lanham MD, Rowman & Littlefield , 1st, 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, glossy pictorial boards, 374 pages. This new biography of Ian Fleming presents a fresh and illuminating portrayal of the iconic creator of James Bond. Oliver Buckton provides the first in-depth exploration of the entire process of Ian Fleming's writing--from initial conception, through composition, to his involvement in the innovative publication methods of his books. He also investigates the vital impact of Fleming's work in naval intelligence during World War Two on his later writings, especially the wartime operations he planned and executed and how they drove the plots of the James Bond novels. Buckton considers the vital role of wartime deception, disinformation, and propaganda in shaping Fleming's later techniques and imaginative creations. Offering a radically new view of Fleming's relationships with women, Buckton traces the role of strong, independent, and intelligent women such as Maud Russell, Phyllis Bottome, and his wife, Ann, on Fleming's portrayal of female characters. The book concludes with a thorough analysis of the James Bond films from Eon productions, and their influence in promoting, while also distorting, the public's recognition of Fleming's writing. Clean copy.

Softcover. Woodstok VT, The Woodstock Foundation, 1st, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 123 pages, b&w illustrations. SIGNED BY JANE AND WILL CURTIS on the front fly leaf. This work was published in observance of the 100th anniversary of Marsh's death in 1882. It graphically portrays the many-faceted career of this extraordinarily versatile Vermonter. Marsh is best known for his pioneering environmental study, Man and Nature, which was first published in 1864. Marsh was a lawyer, linguist, businessman, farmer, designer, Congressman, and diplomat (he was Minister to Turkey and to the newly-united Kingdom of Italy, where he spent the last twenty-one years of his life, a tour of duty unprecedented in American diplomacy). In Congress he supported creating of the Smithsonian Institution.

Hardcover. Wisconsin, Stanton & Lee Publishers, Inc., 1st, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 240 pages. SIGNED BY OWEN GROMME. Color and b/w illustrations throughout. "SIGNED" sticker on front cover. Dust cover shows wear: some chipping on spine and edges, small tears along edges, light fading. Boards in great shape, only very light fading along bottom edges. From the dust jacket front flap: "...presents the life and art of a man who through eight decades of accomplishment as a naturalist and artist has provided us with a link between the 19th and 21st centuries."

Hardcover. NY, E. P. Dutton, 1st, 1959, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, green cloth with gilt decoration, in a bright dust jacket with light edgewear, chipping, short closed tears. A collection of 74 color and black and white photographs by Bischof taken all over the world. Part biography, part celebration of the work of the great Swiss photographer and member of Magnum, who had been killed in a road accident five years before. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, E. P. Dutton, 1st, 1959, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, green cloth with gilt decoration, in a bright dust jacket with light edgewear, chipping, short closed tears. A collection of 74 color and black and white photographs by Bischof taken all over the world. Part biography, part celebration of the work of the great Swiss photographer and member of Magnum, who had been killed in a road accident five years before. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, Artisan, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 207 pages. Black & white and color illustrations by William Steig. Introduction by John Updike. A study of the life and work of the eminent cartoonist, New Yorker cover artist, and humorist. Steig also served as art director of the New Yorker.

Hardcover. New York, Artisan, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 207 pages. Black & white and color illustrations by William Steig. Introduction by John Updike. A study of the life and work of the eminent cartoonist, New Yorker cover artist, and humorist. Steig also served as art director of the New Yorker.

Hardcover. New York, Artisan, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 207 pages. Black & white and color illustrations by William Steig. Introduction by John Updike. A study of the life and work of the eminent cartoonist, New Yorker cover artist, and humorist. Steig also served as art director of the New Yorker.

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.

Hardcover. NY, Broadway Books, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 394 pages. In this authoritative biography, Sterling Seagrave, bestselling author of The Soong Dynasty, and Peggy Seagrave bring to light the uneasy history of the Yamato Dynasty, from Emperor Meiji in 1852 to the present day. Revealed here for the first time is the full scale of the Japanese looting operation, code-named Kin No Yuri ("Golden Lily") --which systematically removed billions of dollars' worth of gold, platinum, diamonds, art, religious artifacts, and other treasures from a dozen occupied countries during World War II--and the fate of these hidden assets after 1945. Drawing on decades of research, the Seagraves reveal Golden Lily and other secrets of the family's long reign, such as the police state resulting from the Meiji restoration; the folly that led to Japan's 1920s economic crash; the greed that forced hundreds of thousands of working-class girls into prostitution; the devastating effects of the Meiji dogma, which asserts that the imperial family is of divine descent and infallible; and how money--not Shinto--became the state religion of Japan. Clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Vintage Books, reprint, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 522 pages, illus., bibliography, notes, index, Clean copy. In this second installment of Caro's epic biography we witness a momentous turning point in American politics: the tragic last stand of the old politics versus the new. Following Johnson through his service in the Second World War, it describes the foundation and the myths of his long-concealed fortune. The explosive heart of the book is Caro's revelation of the shocking true story of the fiercely contested 1948 senatorial election, which Johnson won with the the '87 votes that changed history.

Hardcover. NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 522 pages, illustrations, bibliography, notes, index, In this second installment of Caro's epic biography we witness a momentous turning point in American politics: the tragic last stand of the old politics versus the new. Following Johnson through his service in the Second World War, it describes the foundation and the myths of his long-concealed fortune. The explosive heart of the book is Caro's revelation of the shocking true story of the fiercely contested 1948 senatorial election, which Johnson won with the the 87 votes that changed history. Previous owner's inscription on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Vintage Books, 2nd pr., 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 1167 pages, illus., bibliography, notes, index, Clean copy. In this third installment of Caro's epic biography he carries Johnson's story through one of its most remarkable periods: his twelve years, from 1949 to 1960, in the United States Senate. At the heart of the book is its unprecedented revelation of how legislative power works in America, how the Senate works, and how Johnson, in his ascent to the presidency, mastered the Senate as no political leader before him had ever done. It was during these years that all Johnson's experience--from his Texas Hill Country boyhood to his passionate representation in Congress of his hardscrabble constituents to his tireless construction of a political machine--came to fruition.

Softcover. NY, Vintage Books, reprint, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 1167 pages, illus., bibliography, notes, index, Clean copy. In this third installment of Caro's epic biography he carries Johnson's story through one of its most remarkable periods: his twelve years, from 1949 to 1960, in the United States Senate. At the heart of the book is its unprecedented revelation of how legislative power works in America, how the Senate works, and how Johnson, in his ascent to the presidency, mastered the Senate as no political leader before him had ever done. It was during these years that all Johnson's experience--from his Texas Hill Country boyhood to his passionate representation in Congress of his hardscrabble constituents to his tireless construction of a political machine--came to fruition.