biography

Hardcover. NY, Viking, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. In 1386, Geoffrey Chaucer endured his worst year, but began his best poem. The father of English literature did not enjoy in his lifetime the literary celebrity that he has today--far from it. The middle-aged Chaucer was living in London, working as a midlevel bureaucrat and sometime poet, until a personal and professional crisis set him down the road leading to The Canterbury Tales. Brought expertly to life by Paul Strohm, this is the eye-opening story of the birth one of the most celebrated literary creations of the English language. INSCRIBED BY STROHM on the title page.

Hardcover. NY, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1st US, 1973, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 246 pages, b&w illustrations. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton & Company, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 606 pages. In this definitive biography of Chester B. Himes (1909-1984), Lawrence P. Jackson uses exclusive interviews and unrestricted access to Himes's full archives to portray a controversial American writer whose novels unflinchingly confront sex, racism, and black identity. Himes brutally rendered racial politics in the best-selling novel If He Hollers Let Him Go, but he became famous for his Harlem detective series, including Cotton Comes to Harlem. A serious literary tastemaker in his day, Himes had friendships-sometimes uneasy-with such luminaries as Ralph Ellison, Carl Van Vechten, and Richard Wright. Jackson's scholarship and astute commentary illuminates Himes's improbable life-his middle-class origins, his eight years in prison, his painful odyssey as a black World War II-era artist, and his escape to Europe for success. More than ten years in the writing, Jackson's biography restores the legacy of a fascinating maverick caught between his aspirations for commercial success and his disturbing, vivid portraits of the United States. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Abrams, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Small paper scar on front fly leaf where tape pull left dime-size white spot. Otherwise like new. 256 pages. Childe Hassam's impressive career as one of America's foremost Impressionists is celebrated and illuminated in this dazzlingly beautiful volume.No other American Impressionist ever surpassed the quality and variety of Hassam's output as a painter and draftsman. Equally talented in oils, watercolors, and prints, he explored rain-swept city scenes, glorious gardens, exquisite women, and stirring flag-lined streets. Many of these irresistible pictures are hidden in private collections and are rarely, if ever, accessible to the public; others are on view at major museums across the country, from the Metropolitan Museum to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. By approaching Childe Hassam (1859-1935) from different angles, the three authors reveal this multitalented artist's many facets and uncover previously unknown aspects of his life and work. The authoritative essays are illustrated with a brilliant array of color illustrations that represent all of Hassam's styles, from Barbizon-inspired Tonalism to Impressionism to Post-Impressionism. The book concludes with an invaluable illustrated chronology and an annotated bibliography.

Hardcover. New York , HarperChildrens, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 240 pages. Clean, tight copy. As children, C.S. Lewis and his brother W.H. Lewis created the fantasy world of Boxen. This book collects stories and illustrations, history, geography etc of Boxen. Reproduced original illustrations by the authors. Introduction by Douglas Gresham. The History of Boxen by Walter Hooper.

Hardcover. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Asia Center, 1st, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 544 pages. Minor corner and edge wear, spine bump, otherwise, spotless and tight copy.

Hardcover. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2nd pr., 1967, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, black cloth with gilt lettering on the spine, 496 pages, b&w illustrations. Sir Henry 'Chips' Channon's extraordinary diaries, first published in 1967, are now considered a modern classic. The years covered in this volume, 1934-53, recall a vanished world where Channon's privileged orbit circled every social and public figure of the day in a round of parties, balls, country-house weekends and endless gossip. His position as a MP enabled him to chronicle, famously, the Abdication Crisis, when King Edward VIII's love for 'jolly, plain 'unprepossessing' Mrs Simpson reduced him to 'a broken man at bay'. Culled from some three million words in the original, Robert Rhodes James's selection gives us the moments and characters of history etched indelibly by a master observer. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, HarperOne, 1st, 2023, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 300 pages, b&w illustrations. The long-awaited and wildly entertaining memoir of the star of stage and screen, the legendary Chita Rivera-three-time Tony Award-winner, Kennedy Centers honoree, and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.She was born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero-until the entertainment world renamed her. But Dolores-the irreverent side of the sensual, dark and ferocious Chita-was always present center stage, and was influential in creating some of Broadway most iconic and acclaimed roles, including Anita in West Side Story the part that made her a star-Rosie in Bye Bye, Birdie, Velma in Chicago, and Aurora in Kiss of the Spider Woman. Written in gratitude to her fans and with the hope that new generations may learn from her extraordinary experience, Chita takes us behind the curtain to reveal the highs and lows of one extraordinary show business career-the creative fermentation, the ego clashes, the miraculous discoveries, the exhilaration when it all went right, and the disappointment when it all went wrong. Clean copy.

Hardcover. France, Editions Artlys, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 256 pages. Hardcover no dust jacket. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. At once Dior scrapbook, survey and autobiography, this magnificent compendium offers a panorama of the life and art of one of the twentieth century's most influential fashion designers. It reprints Dior's 1956 autobiography Christian Dior et moi--in which the designer contrasted his reputation as both an individual and as a company with his own sense of himself--alongside eight articles by Dior first published in Elle magazine in 1951, which were then collected as Je suis couturier. Throughout, the volume takes as its thematic anchor the designer's beautiful childhood home in Granville, elaborating his lifelong attachment to the house (now the Christian Dior Museum) and its gardens, and showing how his work was influenced by these resplendent environs--a theme that especially preoccupied Dior himself, who once affirmed his "tender and wonderful memories of my childhood home," declaring that "my life and my style owe everything to its location and architecture." Many of the copious illustrations that accompany these writings are supplied by the Christian Dior Museum collection, and reproduce family albums and archival photographs, fashion sketches and formal presentations of classic Dior dresses, hats, shoes and jewelry. Dior scholar Jean-Luc Dufresne conducts a tour of the Dior house and garden, narrating its long and fascinating history.

Hardcover. Berkeley CA, University of California, 1st, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 525 pages, in a bright unclipped dust jacket.

Hardcover. NY, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1st, 1922, Book: Fair, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, brown cloth stamped with gilt lettering, 366 pages. The memoir of Elizabeth Waties Allston Pringle describes her life on a South Carolina coastal rice plantation from the plantation days through the Civil War and into the difficult post-war period. 8 b&w plates. This is a very worn ex-lib copy with tape repair and stamping but all there, clean inside.

Hardcover. London, George Routledge and Sons, Reprint, 1867, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Two hardcover volumes. Translated by Thomas Johnes. 102 engravings. 3/4 blue leather & patterned paper on boards, Spine with gilt & raised bands. All edges gilt. Previous owner's name stamp on front end paper. Volume 1 - 640 pages. Light wear. Clean, unmarked text. Volume 2 - 552 pages. Light wear. Clean, unmarked pages.

Hardcover. NY, Hachette, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 415 pages, b&w illustrations. In Chuck Berry, biographer RJ Smith crafts a comprehensive portrait of one of the great American entertainers, guitarists, and lyricists of the 20th century, bringing Chuck Berry to life in vivid detail. Based on interviews, archival research, legal documents, and a deep understanding of Berry's St. Louis (his birthplace, and the place where he died in March 2017), Smith sheds new light on a man few have ever really understood. By placing his life within the context of the American culture he made and eventually withdrew from, we understand how Berry became such a groundbreaking figure in music, erasing racial boundaries, crafting subtle political commentary, and paying a great price for his success. While celebrating his accomplishments, the book also does not shy away from troubling aspects of his public and private life, asking profound questions about how and why we separate the art from the artist. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, Harmony Books, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 346 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, tight copy. Black and white pictures throughout.

Hardcover. NY, Abrams, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The director Michael Cimino (1939-2016) is famous for two films: the intense, powerful, and enduring Vietnam movie The Deer Hunter, which won Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 1979 and also won Cimino Best Director, and Heaven's Gate, the most notorious bomb of all time. Originally budgeted at $11 million, Cimino's sprawling western went off the rails in Montana. The picture grew longer and longer, and the budget ballooned to over $40 million. When it was finally released, Heaven's Gate failed so completely with reviewers and at the box office that it put legendary studio United Artists out of business and marked the end of Hollywood's auteur era.Or so the conventional wisdom goes. Charles Elton delves deeply into the making and aftermath of the movie and presents a surprisingly different view to that of Steven Bach, one of the executives responsible for Heaven's Gate, who wrote a scathing book about the film and solidified the widely held view that Cimino wounded the movie industry beyond repair. Elton's Cimino is a richly detailed biography that offers a revisionist history of a lightning rod filmmaker. Based on extensive interviews with Cimino's peers and collaborators and enemies and friends, most of whom have never spoken before, it unravels the enigmas and falsehoods, many perpetrated by the director himself, which surround his life, and sheds new light on his extraordinary career. This is a story of the making of art, the business of Hollywood, and the costs of ambition, both financial and personal.

Hardcover. NY, Harry N. Abrams, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The first biography of critically acclaimed then critically derided filmmaker Michael Cimino--and a reevaluation of the infamous film that destroyed his career. The director Michael Cimino (1939-2016) is famous for two films: the intense, powerful, and enduring Vietnam movie The Deer Hunter, which won Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 1979 and also won Cimino Best Director, and Heaven's Gate, the most notorious bomb of all time. Originally budgeted at $11 million, Cimino's sprawling western went off the rails in Montana. The picture grew longer and longer, and the budget ballooned to over $40 million. When it was finally released, Heaven's Gate failed so completely with reviewers and at the box office that it put legendary studio United Artists out of business and marked the end of Hollywood's auteur era. Or so the conventional wisdom goes. Charles Elton delves deeply into the making and aftermath of the movie and presents a surprisingly different view to that of Steven Bach, one of the executives responsible for Heaven's Gate, who wrote a scathing book about the film and solidified the widely held view that Cimino wounded the movie industry beyond repair. Elton's Cimino is a richly detailed biography that offers a revisionist history of a lightning rod filmmaker.

Softcover. Torino, Societa Editrice Internazionale, 1st Italian, 1975, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 296 pages, illustrated wrappers. An Italian journalist's memoir of a half century living in London. With a SiGNED letter laid in to the previous owner Cecil Roberts from the author. ITALIAN TEXT.

Hardcover. New York , Norton , 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 190 pages, illustrated in color and b&w. Cipe Pineles was art director for leading fashion magazines between 1930 and 1960. Tracing Pineles's career from young immigrant to "ranking" female in the design world, Martha Scotford chronicles a time when few women were involved in design and assesses Cipe's brilliant contributions to graphic design and magazine design in particular.

Softcover. Rootstock Publishing, 1st, 2024, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 316 pages, b&w illustrations. Circle of Sawdust is a uniquely personal story of the wild characters, fascinating personalities, remarkable histories, and behind-the-scenes world of traditional traveling circuses. Here is a true-life tale about a boy's impulse to run off and join the circus and then-through doubt, failure, loss, and tragedy-pursue the implausible vision of starting his own circus! With humor and passion, founder of Circus Smirkus Rob Mermin writes about the precarious life of a creative artist, the ups and downs of taking risks, and the idealistic struggle to hold onto a dream. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, William Morrow, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, pages. Citizen Coors is the riveting saga of an American dynasty. From the moment the destitute Prussian Adolph Coors stows away on a Baltimore-bound ship in 1868 to the worldwide expansion of the billion-dollar Coors Brewing Company, Citizen Coors is a headlong American tale of triumph over bare-knuckle competition. The Coors family does it the old-fashioned way, through fearsome devotion to product, rejection of modern marketing, and refusing to borrow so much as a nickel.But the family almost rides its principles into the ground. "Nobody will ever choose a beer on the basis of a thirty-second ad," Bill Coors is fond of saying at a time when his two main competitors, Anheuser-Busch and Miller, are spending upward of a billion dollars a year on ads. He won't even allow a ring-pull can. The brewery's decline and recovery are dizzying. But Citizen Coors is more than a business story. Here is Adolph, the founder,in 1929, distraught over Prohibition, hurling himself to his death from a hotel balcony. Here is Bill,ten years later, yearning for the wider world but forced back to the brewery by a single glance from his father. Here is Joe, Jr., raised to rule yet suddenly banished for marrying without permission. Here is Peter, prevented from rescuing the company precisely because he has been trained to do so. Here is kidnapping and murder. Here are generations of Coors men broken against the iron will of their fathers. Here is a second suicide, eerily similar to the first.

Hardcover. New York, Simon & Schuster, 1st US, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 423 pages, SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page. Very clean and tight copy. With "humanism, generosity, and a passionate, beating heart" (The Times, London), Janice Galloway's Clara reignites, from between the lines of history, the great love of Robert and Clara Schumann. In her lifetime, Clara was a celebrated concert pianist and composer, editor and teacher, friend of Brahms -- as well as mother of the eight Schumann children and caretaker of her husband through a series of crippling mental illnesses. In its luminous integrity the novel brings Clara Schumann to life as a woman of genius. Galloway is at once a meticulous researcher of her subjects' remarkable and highly dramatic artistic careers and a virtuoso storyteller whose imagination and empathy lead her to that place off limits to history and biography -- inside the human mind. Distilling the memories, poetry, and musical notes therein, she examines the ways artists divine patterns out of life's chaos. "Passion," writes Galloway of Clara's performance philosophy, "one might take for granted -- its control is the mechanism through which all else flows." Though music may have bent to Clara's will, love served her far more tragically. Dismissing the cliches of Great Art and rejecting the romantic conflation of Madness and Creativity, Clara boldly ventures that in a life marred by alienation and isolation, "Work alone endures."

Hardcover. Lexington KY, University Press of Kentucky, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 448 pages. Greta Garbo proclaimed him as her favorite director. Actors, actresses, and even child stars were so at ease under his direction that they were able to deliver inspired and powerful performances. Academy-Award-nominated director Clarence Brown (1890-1987) worked with some of Hollywood's greatest stars, such as Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Mickey Rooney, Katharine Hepburn, and Spencer Tracy. Known as the "star maker," he helped guide the acting career of child sensation Elizabeth Taylor (of whom he once said, "she has a face that is an act of God") and discovered Academy-Award-winning child star Claude Jarman Jr. for The Yearling (1946). He directed more than fifty films, including Possessed (1931), Anna Karenina (1935), National Velvet (1944), and Intruder in the Dust (1949), winning his audiences over with glamorous star vehicles, tales of families, communities, and slices of Americana, as well as hard-hitting dramas. Although Brown was admired by peers like Jean Renoir, Frank Capra, and John Ford, his illuminating work and contributions to classic cinema are rarely mentioned in the same breath as those of Hollywood's great directors. In this first full-length account of the life and career of the pioneering filmmaker, Gwenda Young discusses Brown's background to show how his hardworking parents and resilient grandparents inspired his entrepreneurial spirit. She reveals how the one-time engineer and World War I aviator established a thriving car dealership, the Brown Motor Car Company, in Alabama-only to give it all up to follow his dream of making movies. He would not only become a brilliant director but also a craftsman who was known for his innovative use of lighting and composition.

Princeton University Art Museum, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 408 pages. Clarence H. White (1871-1925) was one of the most influential art photographers and teachers of the early 20th century and a founding member of the Photo-Secession. This beautiful publication offers a new appraisal of White's contributions, including his groundbreaking aesthetic experiments, his commitment to the ideals of American socialism, and his embrace of the expanding fields of photographic book and fashion illustration, celebrity portraiture, and advertising. Based on extensive archival research, the book challenges the idea of an abrupt rupture between prewar, soft-focus idealizing photography and postwar "modernism" to paint a more nuanced picture of American culture in the Progressive era. The illustrations are well reproduced and comprehensive.

Hardcover. NY, Praeger Publishers, 1st, 1973, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Foreword by Wilfrid Sheed. IIlustrated with photographs. Statistics. 274 pages. Biography of one of the greatest baseball player in the game. Roberto Clemente was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973. Clean copy.