biography

Softcover. Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1st pbk, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 376 pages, b&w illustrations. The personal history of Barney Josephson, proprietor of the legendary interracial New York City night clubs Cafe Society Downtown and Cafe Society Uptown and their successor, The Cookery. Famously known as 'the wrong place for the Right people', Cafe Society featured the cream of jazz and blues performers--among whom were Billie Holiday, Big Joe Turner, Lester Young, Buck Clayton, Big Sid Catlett, and Mary Lou Williams--as well as comedy stars Imogene Coca, Zero Mostel, and Jack Gilford, the boogie-woogie pianists, and legendary gospel and folk artists. Spanning half a century from the 1930s to the 1980s, Josephson's narrative depicts both the business and the artistic sides of Cafe Society while exposing the tensions between the club's own progressive interracial openness and the more restrictive social and political climate in which it evolved. Publisher's stamp on bottom edge otherwise clean.

Hardcover. New York, University Books, 1st, 1961, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 312 pages. Hardcover. B/w illustrations. Marble cover boards, red quarter cloth, gilt title on spine. Red endpapers. Top edge dyed. Previous owner's inscription on title page. Some slight tanning to a few pages from age. Dust jacket unclipped, has some chipping and agewear (see images). Binding good. Spine straight. Pages unmarked. The biography of the European eighteenth century occultist and Mason, Count Allesandro di Cagliostro.

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.

Softcover. Cambridge [England] ; New York, Cambridge University Press, reprint, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 389 pages. Minor wear to edges of cover. Previous owner's inscription on front flyleaf. Slight foxing on top edge. Inside is bright, clean and unmarked. A nice copy.

Hardcover. NY, Hyperion, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Camp is Eisner's ode to Keewaydin--a Vermont camp that four generations of the Eisner family have attended for 100 years--as well as a guide to growing up, building relationships, and developing the tools of leadership. Through heartwarming anecdotes from his time spent at Keewaydin and stories from his life in the upper echelons of American business that illustrate the camp's continued influence, Eisner creates a touching and insightful portrait of his own youth, as well as a resounding declaration of summer camp as an invaluable national institution. Clean copy.

NY, Carlton Press, 1st, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in an unclipped dust jacket with edgewear. 120 pages with b&w photos. INSCRIBED BY BAKER on the front fly leaf. The author's account of his 2,000 mile trek from Georgia to Maine in 1964. Scarce.

Hardcover. NY, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 516 pages includes index, b&w photos. Neil Lanctot's biography of Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella--filled with surprises--is the first life of the Dodger great in decades and the most authoritative ever published. Born to a father of Italian descent and an African- American mother, Campanella wanted to be a ballplayer from childhood but was barred by color from the major leagues. He dropped out of school to play professional ball with the Negro Leagues' Washington (later Baltimore) Elite Giants, where he honed his skills under Hall of Fame catcher Biz Mackey. Campy played eight years in the Negro Leagues until the major leagues integrated. Ironically, he and not Jackie Robinson might have been the player to integrate baseball, as Lanctot reveals. An early recruit to Branch Rickey's "Great Experiment" with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Campy became the first African-American catcher in the twentieth century in the major leagues. As Lanctot discloses, Campanella and Robinson, pioneers of integration, had a contentious relationship, largely as a result of a dispute over postseason barnstorming. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Ithaca NY, Cornell/ Phaidon, 1st, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 239 pages, large format. Profusely illustrated in color, b&w. Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697-1768), known as Canaletto, is one of the most popular of all old master painters. His views of Venice and London are much celebrated and admired. The author traces Canaletto's career from his beginnings as a scene-painter with his father to the work of his later years.

Hardcover. NY, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1st, 2024, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 417 pages, color and b&w illustrations. The Warhol superstar and transgender icon Candy Darling was glamour personified, but she was without a real place in the world. Growing up on Long Island, lonely and quiet and queer, she was enchanted by Hollywood starlets like Kim Novak. She found her turn in New York's early Off-Off-Broadway theater scene, in Warhol's films Flesh and Women in Revolt, and at the famed nightclub Max's Kansas City. She inspired songs by Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones. She became friends with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, borrowed a dress from Lauren Hutton, posed for Richard Avedon, and performed alongside Tennessee Williams in his own play. Yet Candy lived on the edge, relying on the kindness of strangers, friends, and her quietly devoted mother, sleeping on couches and in cheap hotel rooms, keeping a part of herself hidden. She wanted to be a star, but mostly she wanted to be loved. Her last diary entry was: "I shall try to be grateful for life . . . Cannot imagine who would want me." Candy died at twenty-nine in 1974, just as conversations about gender and identity were beginning to enter the broader culture. She never knew it, but she changed the world. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Taunton, MA, William S. Sullwold, 1st, 1974, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 111 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Clean, tight copy.Black & white illust. 111 pages., end paper map. With an extensive bibliography by Ralph M. Titcomb.

Softcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, 1st, 2025, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 76 pages in color. The first half of Milo Manara's two-volume epic biography of the hot-tempered Italian master painter. It depicts Caravaggio's early years in Rome as he struggles to capture truth on canvas, only to have his art condemned to be burned by the Church. He then is forced to flee the city when he kills a man in righteous fury over the death of a prostitute. Discover the bawdy, swashbuckling life of one of the greatest painters in history through Manara's passionate, personal tribute to his artistic idol, Michelangelo Merisi, whom the world would come to know as Caravaggio.

Softcover. NY, Phaidon, 1st pbk, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 9 x 10". 448 pages. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) was one of the most innovative painters of his time, and one of the most momentous artists of any era. Rescued from neglect, he has become a cultural icon in the late twentieth century, not only for his art but also because of his violent and tragic life. Catherine Puglisi's highly praised monograph, supersedes all previous studies of the artist by far. Making full use of the latest research and a series of dramatic recent discoveries, she has produced a concise, clear-headed and comprehensive work of scholarship that also provides a moving biography of the artist and an incisive deconstruction of the genius with which he absorbed and transformed the artistic tradition of his time. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Viking Press, BC Ed., 1975, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 369 pages, b&w plates. Dust jacket worn, chipped. Story of the nineteenth century aristocratic life of the leader of the "Charge of the Light Brigade".

Hardcover. Albuquerque, NM, University of New Mexico Press, 1st, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 195 pages, illustrated throughout in color and b&w. Blue cloth with gilt title to spine. Blue pictorial dust jacket. Light shelfwear to covers, else like new.Traces the life of the Navajo artist, including his experiences as a code talker for the Marines in World War II, and looks at his paintings and watercolors.

Hardcover. NY, Dodd, Mead & Company, 1st, 1922, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth with gilt lettering, 421 pages. A biography of the crusader against government corruption. Schurz left public service after the Hayes administration, but continued to attack the "spoils system" in the United States government. He also led the New York Civil Service Reform League. He served as editor of the Evening Post from 1881-1885, and as an editorial writer for Harper's Weekly. He remained politically active as a recognized leader in the German American community. Name on front fly leaf. Front hinge of book cracked and frontispiece portrait loose. Rest of volume is solid, clean.

Hardcover. Albuquerque NM, University of New Mexico Press, 1st, 1955, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Poor, Hardcover, 150 pages, b&w photo illustrations. Dust jacket present but badly worn, chipped. Book condition is very good. SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page. Also INSCRIBED BY VAN VECHTEN on front fly leaf: "For Dannie with fond affection from Carlo/April 6 1955/New York". Laid-in: an original b&w photo/postcard embossed "Photograph by Carl Van Vechten", dark exposure with 3 unidentified individuals. With verso handwritten note signed Carlo with a mailing date of 12/30/1958. Also: 4-page mimeographed memorial (speech) by George S. Schuyler dated December 23 1964 and a similar one (5-page) by Lincoln Kirstein. Several clippings. obituaries on his passing at age 84.

Hardcover. NY, Billboard Books, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 154 pages, b&w illustrations. Carmen McRae is well known as one of jazz music's most masterful improvisers, and is ranked among the greatest jazz singers of all time. She grew up during the swing era in Harlem, and participated in the transition from swing to bebop--the New Thing--playing with all the important musicians and in all the major clubs. Her struggle to fame was long and hard, finally paying off when she was thirty-four years old and began to perform with Tony Scott's band. It was Scott who convinced her to stand up at the microphone and leave the piano bench behind. By 1955 she had signed with Decca records and achieved national recognition. The rise to fame had begun. By the end of her life Carmen had performed all over the world, recorded over sixty albums, and been recognized with numerous awards and honors. Carmen McRae died on November 10, 1994.

Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 260 pages. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket.

Hardcover. London, Hamish Hamilton, 1st, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Caroline of Brunswick, the scandaloue wife of the future George IV, is one of history's problems. Since her death in 1821, many have tried to understand her, to make her a sympathetic character, a heroine. She defeats every effort: there is an oddity about her which is not endearing, and no sooner has one assembled her good qualities - her generosity, her courage, her kindness - than one is confronted by an utterly unforgivable piece of callousness, or mischief, or immorality. A fascinating biography. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. Columbia, S.C., University of South Carolina Press, 1st, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Columbia, S.C., University of South Carolina Press, 1st, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust jacket: Good, 344 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. B&w illustrations and photographs throughout. Illustrated frontispiece. Gilt titles on spine. Decorative stain to top edge. Light edge wear to dust jacket, otherwise clean, tight copy. . Record # 467670

Hardcover. Boston, Northeastern University, 1st, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover. Light wear and rubbing to dust jacket, spine slightly sunned. Fowler attempts to restore to Catt her central role in the suffragist movement in the United States and in the founding of the League of Women Voters. Although the first three chapters do recount her life, the author himself notes that this is not a conventional biography. Rather, the work aims primarily at an analysis of Catt as a political leader and political visionary.

Hardcover. New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 7th pr., 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 336 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket.

Hardcover. New York , Charles Scribner's Sons, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 160 pages, illustrated throughout with b&w photographs by Bob Adelman. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket.

Hardcover. NY, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 556 pages with index. Film historian and acclaimed New York Times best-selling biographer Scott Eyman has written the definitive, "captivating" (Associated Press) biography of Hollywood legend Cary Grant, one of the most accomplished - and beloved - actors of his generation, who remains as popular as ever today. Born Archibald Leach in 1904, he came to America as a teenaged acrobat to find fame and fortune, but he was always haunted by his past. His father was a feckless alcoholic, and his mother was committed to an asylum when Archie was 11 years old. He believed her to be dead until he was informed she was alive when he was 31 years old. Because of this experience Grant would have difficulty forming close attachments throughout his life. He married five times and had numerous affairs. Despite a remarkable degree of success, Grant remained deeply conflicted about his past, his present, his basic identity, and even the public that worshipped him in movies such as Gunga Din, Notorious, and North by Northwest. Drawing on Grant's own papers, extensive archival research, and interviews with family and friends, this is the definitive portrait of a movie immortal. Remainder line bottom edge, otherwise like new.