biography

Hardcover. Norman, Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma Press, 1st, 1966, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 315 pages, b&w illustrations. Spine slightly cocked. Pictorial dust jacket with light sunfading to spine; edge wear and light rubbing near extremities. Clean text.

NY, Da Capo Press , 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Thomas Paine's words were like no others in history: they leaped off the page, inspiring readers to change their lives, their governments, their kings, and even their gods. In an age when spoken and written words were the only forms of communication, Paine's aroused men to action like no one else. The most widely read political writer of his generation, he proved to be more than a century ahead of his time, conceiving and demanding unheard-of social reforms that are now integral elements of modern republican societies. Among them were government subsidies for the poor, universal housing and education, pre- and post-natal care for women, and universal social security. An Englishman who emigrated to the American colonies, he formed close friendships with Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, and his ideas helped shape the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

Hardcover. Glendale CA, Arthur H. Clark Co., 1st, 1951, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, dark blue cloth with gilt lettering on the spine, 340 pages. A biography of Thomas Pownall (1757 - 1760) who was governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony during the French and Indian War and later a member of Parliament (1767 - 1780). Pownall had sympathies for the colonial grievances and institutions. This biography is based on a study of widely scattered documentary materials and provides insight into a man of complex and contradictory ideas and actions during the pre-Revolutionary period. Includes bibliography and index. Stamping to endpapers, from an academic library.

Softcover. Bloomington IN, Indiana University Press, 1st, 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 333 pages. Offers the first complete biography in English of the dynamic revolutionary leader from Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara. Coming to power in 1983, Sankara set his sights on combating social injustice, poverty, and corruption in his country, fighting for women's rights, direct forms of democracy, economic sovereignty, and environmental justice. Drawing on government archival sources and over a hundred interviews with Sankara's family members, friends, and closest revolutionary colleagues, Brian J. Peterson details Sankara's political career and rise to power, as well as his assassination at age 37 in 1987, in a plot led by his close friend Blaise Compaore. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Thomas Crowell, 1st, 1926, Book: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 95 pages. B&w photo illustrations. A short biography of the book publisher. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, N.Y., Carlton Press, reprint, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 287 pages, b&w illustrations. INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR on front end paper. Light edgewear to dust jacket, else a clean, tight copy.

Softcover. NY, Blood Moon, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 752 pages, b&w illustrations. Born in Central Europe during the twilight of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, three "vonderful vimmen"--Zsa Zsa, Eva, and Magda Gabor--transferred their glittery dreams and gold-digging ambitions to Hollywood. They supplemented America's most Imperial Age with "guts, glamour, and goulash," and reigned there as the Hungarian equivalents of Helen of Troy, Madame du Barry, and Madame de Pompadour. More effectively than any army, these Bombshells from Budapest conquered kings, dukes, and princes, always with a special passion for millionaires, as they amassed fortunes, broke hearts, and amused sophisticated voyeurs on two continents. With their wit, charm, and beauty, thanks to training inspired by the glittering traditions of the Imperial Habsburgs, they became famous for being famous. Clean copy.

Softcover. Montpelier VT, Vermont State Division of the American Association of University Women, 2nd Ed., 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 84 pages, b&w illustrations. Related newspaper clipping laid in. Mild soil to wraps, otherwise a clean copy.

Middlebury VT, Paul S. Eriksson, 1st, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, price-clipped dust jacket. SIGNED AND DATED BY THE AUTHOR on the front fly leaf. Introduction by Malcolm Cowley. A memoir of the sculptor by his older sister. 300 pages, b&w photos. Previous owner's inscription on lower front fly leaf. Otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Charles Scribner's Sons, 3rd pr., 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a nice dust jacket with light fading to spine, 216 pages. A view from behind the plate of baseball in the 50s, 60s,, and 70s. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, W.W. Norton & Company, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 430 pages. During America's Swing Era, no musician was more successful or controversial than Artie Shaw: the charismatic and opinionated clarinetist-bandleader whose dozens of hits became anthems for "the greatest generation." But some of his most beautiful recordings were not issued until decades after he'd left the scene. He broke racial barriers by hiring African-American musicians. His frequent "retirements" earned him a reputation as the Hamlet of jazz. And he quit playing for good at the height of his powers. The handsome Shaw had seven wives (including Lana Turner and Ava Gardner). Inveterate reader and author of three books, he befriended the best-known writers of his time. Tom Nolan, who interviewed Shaw between 1990 and his death in 2004 and spoke with one hundred of his colleagues and contemporaries, captures Shaw and his era with candour and sympathy, bringing the master to vivid life and restoring him to his rightful place in jazz history. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. NY, Abrams, 1st, 2023, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 265 pages illustrated in b&w. From Bill Griffith, creator of Zippy the Pinhead and Nobody's Fool, comes Three Rocks, a biography of cartoonist Ernie Bushmiller, creator of the iconic comic strip Nancy. But this graphic novel is about more than a single comic book artist. It is the story of this American art form, tracing its inception to 1895 with the Yellow Kid, the creation of Nancy in 1933, and all the strips that followed, including Peanuts and The Far Side. When Bushmiller died in 1982, Nancy was running in almost 900 daily newspapers--a number few syndicated cartoonists ever achieve. Nancy is hailed as the "perfect" comic strip by fans and cartoonists alike. The title Three Rocks refers to the trope of three hemispherical rocks often seen in a Bushmiller landscape--just enough to communicate environment to the reader. This distillation is exemplary of the iconic, diagrammatic look of Nancy, a comic strip about the nature of what it means to be a comic strip--the perfect avatar for Griffith to expand upon his philosophy of creating comics. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. US, North Point Press, 1st, 1998-05-01, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 376 pages, b&w photos. Light shelf-wear to dust jacket, else a clean, tight copy. A memoir of her life in the 1930s and 1940s with photographer Edward Weston, by his wife at the time, and sometimes model, Charis Wilson. 86 photographs throughout. including many previously unpublished family pictures, photographs by friends, and many of Weston's own extraordinary images.

Hardcover. Cambridge, Mass., Charlotte C. Coates, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 250 pages. Ex-library stamp on title page. Ex-library residue and envelope on back endpaper. Otherwise, a very clean and tight copy.

Hardcover. Boston/London, Walker Books, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Haunting and deeply moving - a beautifully illustrated, fictionalized account of a formative time in the life of the teenage girl who wrote our most enduring horror story. Long before Mary Shelley published her Gothic masterpiece, Frankenstein, in 1818, at the age of nineteen, she shared fireside ghost tales at the home of family friends in Scotland. It was there that the headstrong girl - orphaned by her mother, spurned by her stepmother, and sent away by her father - spent two of her happiest teenage years. The brooding Scottish landscape and warm family atmosphere so influenced the author's life and art that some believe her famous novel took root there. To illuminate this period in Mary Shelley's life, Sharon Darrow skillfully spins fiction from fact. Her words are masterfully matched by Angela Barrett's exquisite, atmospheric, authentically detailed illustrations. The result is a rich tapestry of stories within stories - those told, those written, and more extraordinary, those lived. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Franklin Center PA, The Franklin Library, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in decorated red leather. This limited first edition has been signed by Arthur Miller exclusively for members of the The Signed First Edition Society. All edges gilt, marbled endpapers, sewn-in silk bookmarker. Clean, fresh and bright. His aurobiography. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Arthur Miller tells his life story with humor, passion, and candor. Beginning with his childhood and continuing through his life and career telling of both successes and failures. Miller gives colorful portraits of those people who touched his life, such as Marilyn Monroe, Orson Wells, Lucky Luciano, Clark Gable, Tennessee Williams, John F. Kennedy, Mikhail Gorbachev, and many more. Clean, bright copy.

Softcover. NY, HarperCollins, 1st pbk, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 296 pages, b&w illustrations. The apt subtitle of this award-winning biography, Photographer & Revolutionary, sums up the creative tensions that characterized Tina Modotti's life and brief photographic career. Active as a photographer for only nine years, Modotti was pulled between formal and social concerns. Producing striking modernist compositions of everyday objects, photojournalism of poverty and conflict, and portraits of celebrities and common people alike, Modotti balanced political concerns with formal rigor.First published in 1993 and long out of print, Tina Modotti: Photographer & Revolutionary is the definitive portrayal of Modotti's life and work. Few photographers are more deserving of a biographical treatment than Modotti, whose work as an actress and artist's model introduced her to Edward Weston, who was to become her lover. Soon after she arrived in Mexico City with Weston, Modotti became increasingly politicized, working for the communist newspaper El Machete and establishing herself as the go-to photographer for the Mexican Muralist movement. The book includes extensive archival material, interviews with Modotti's contemporaries and many rare photographs. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton & Company, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Titanic Thompson is the rollicking true story of one of the most charismatic characters in twentieth-century America. Travelling only with his golf clubs, a .45 revolver, and a suitcase full of cash, this is the legendary tale of a man who was married five times to five different girls, all teenagers on their wedding day. He killed five men, though he'd say 'they'd all agree they had it coming to them'. He won and lost millions in a time when being a millionaire still really meant something.Filled with fascinating facts and famous faces - Harry Houdini, Al Capone, Lee Trevino, Arnold Rothstein and Jean Harlow all make appearances - this is a brilliant and compelling snapshot of life on the road in freewheelin' America.

Hardcover. Boulder CO, Westview Press, 2nd pr., 1999, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 264 pages, color and b&w illustrations. This introduction to the life and works of one of the giants of Western painting also surveys the golden age of Venetian painting from Bellini to Veronese and its place in the history of Western art. Sometimes referred to as the founder of modern painting Titian's legacy and influence was immense and continuing?: Italian Baroque painting, El Greco, Rubens, Rembrandt and Dutch painting, French 18th century painting, Velazquez, and Picasso. There are 119 black and white illustrations integrated with the text and 8 plates in full color, a selected bibliography and index. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Dutton, 1st, 2023, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The mysterious true story of Connie Converse--a mid-century New York City songwriter, singer, and composer whose haunting music never found broad recognition--and one writer's quest to understand her life This is the mesmerizing story of an enigmatic life. When musician and New Yorker contributor Howard Fishman first heard Connie Converse's voice on a recording, he was convinced she could not be real. Her recordings were too good not to know, and too out of place for the 1950s to make sense--a singer who seemed to bridge the gap between traditional Americana (country, blues, folk, jazz, and gospel), the Great American Songbook, and the singer-songwriter movement that exploded a decade later with Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. And then there was the bizarre legend about Connie Converse that had become the prevailing narrative of her life: that in 1974, at the age of fifty, she simply drove off one day and was never heard from again. Could this have been true? Who was Connie Converse, really?

Hardcover. NY, Harper & Row, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, lightly worn dust jacket that's price-clipped. 434 pages, b&w illustrations. This is a full-scale biography of John Brown. "John Brown was a profoundly religious man dedicated to emancipation and Negro rights..." He "tried to overthrow slavery in the South itself by attacking Harpers Ferry and inciting a slave insurrection."Was Brown a vicious fanatic, or the greatest abolitionist hero in history?" This history is based on "contemporary letters, diaries, journals, newspapers, published reports, and recollections of eyewitnesses, this book is especially notable for providing the first really full account ever written of Brown's career before he went to Kansas..." Bold presentation inscription on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. London, Phaidon Press, 1st, 1997, Book: Near Fine, Dust Jacket: Near Fine, Hardcover, photographs and afterword by Ferdinando Scianna. 124 pages; full-page duo-toned b&w plates throughout; 10 x 12.5 inches. Biography, bibliography. Since he began taking photographs in the 1960s, journalist and Magnum photographer Ferdinando Scianna has been fascinated by the sight of sleepers. Over four decades Scianna has captured thousands of images of people and animals sleeping in the countryside, in cities, in deserts, on street corners, in moving trains, and in their own homes.

Hardcover. Northampton MA, Kraushar Press, 1st, 1943, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, orange cloth covers with black lettering, 163 pages, b&w photos. Inspired by a visit to Stoney Reservation in Alberta, Canada, the author spent 15 years visiting & living among 47 tribes, and developed a touring show of pictures, songs, dances, stories & sign language. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. South Windsor, CT, Barney E. Daley, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 300+ pages. Hardcover. INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR. Bound in green cloth; gilt lettering & design on spine and front cover. From the introduction (Evan Lawn): "Whether one reads straight through or reads here and there in a checkered fashion, every reader will enjoy meeting Barney. ...And if the reader happens to be an historian, these memoirs will be prized as a treasure trove of living information about rural, daily life before electricity and indoor plumbing."