biography

Hardcover. Boston, Northeastern University Press, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 426 pages, b&w photographs. Bright, clean copy. This engaging biography of Harold Arlen charts the course of his brilliant career, from band leader in his native Buffalo, New York, to songwriter and vocalist in vaudeville, to composer of Broadway musicals and revues at Harlem's Cotton Club, to writer of the everlasting music in The Wizard of Oz and other films. Drawing on a treasure trove of family documents and memorabilia, Edward Jablonski vividly describes Arlen's life, including his loving but troubled marriage to Anya, the strained relationship with his father and brother, his alcoholism and illnesses, and his friendship with Marlene Dietrich. Populated with such greats as Johnny Mercer, George and Ira Gershwin, E. Y. Harburg, Bert Lahr, and Judy Garland, the book also captures the spirit of Arlen's times and conveys a sense of the inner workings of the music business.

Hardcover. NY, Knopf, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 599 pages. Don't pick up this fascinating, deeply eccentric book expecting to find a conventional biography of Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926). The fiery American labor leader who founded the Socialist Party of America is not so much the subject as the central figure in a group portrait of utopian dreamers--including Karl Marx, Brigham Young, abolitionist Wendell Phillips, poet James Whitcomb Riley, and detective-agency founder Allan Pinkerton--from the time of the French Revolution through the dawn of the 20th century. Author Marguerite Young is a legendary Greenwich Village bohemian who died in 1995. She devoted the last 25 years of her life to this volume, which was intended as a recapitulation of the issues that had engaged Debs - justice for workers, peace for everyone, racial equality - and continued to galvanize America in the 1960s and beyond. Young doesn't provide a lot of straight factual information about Debs's life, but takes instead a snapshot of his soul as it was formed by reading and experience. The narrative closes (sort of) with the national railroad strike of 1877, a bitter defeat for labor that turned railroad worker and union activist Debs toward greater radicalism. Though not a work for the traditionally minded, Young's genre-bending book will thrill students of American social and socialist history. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 4th Ed., 1881, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Two volumes complete, 594, 596 pages. Bound in 3/4 red leather over marbled boards. Top edge gilt, gilt titles on spine faded slightly. Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) was an English social theorist often seen as the first female sociologist. She wrote from a sociological, holistic, religious and feminine angle, translated works by Auguste Comte, and, rarely for a woman writer at the time, earned enough to support herself. Previous owner's bookplate inside front covers, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 308 pages. 397 illustrations, including 104 plates in full color. This beautiful volume is in very good shape with tight binding. Tanned cloth, front cover illustration; Stampede(1969). Looks as good as new.

Hardcover. Santa Cruz, CA, Flesk Publications, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 304 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Color illustrations. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Harvey Dunn was one of twentieth century America's most powerful illustrators, painters and teachers. This comprehensive volume covers a major portion of his illustrations and paintings for the first time. Content includes illustration art, pioneer and western works, and his powerful World War I pieces inspired by his battlefield sketches. Also included are the rarely seen nudes, portraits, and murals. Paintings from museums and private collections showcase the full range of this talented American artist. For this book, many original paintings were tracked down and re-photographed in order to reintroduce the work of this important artist. Until now, most of Dunn's paintings and illustrations have been unavailable to the public in their original form. Locations of pictures in public collections are listed, as are the original publication dates and places. Additionally, a section is devoted to the artist's working and teaching methods. Also included is a reprinting of Dunn's "An Evening in the Classroom," compiled from notes made during critiques, passing on his inspirational teaching philosophy. A comprehensive list of Dunn's students with sample art is included as well.

Hardcover. NY, Macmillan, 1st, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Black & white illustrations by Ib Ohlsson. Remainder mark on bottom-edge. Colorful facts about Stetson's life in this account of a man whose legacy includes more than a hat.

Hardcover. New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1st, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 288 pages, illustrated throughout in color and b&w. Brown cloth, pictorial dust jacket. Beautiful copy in shrinkwrap. Like new. The first biography of the couple who created the landmark collection that is still the base of most American museums.

Hardcover. NY, Palgrave/Macmillan, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 283 pages. Each chapter is devoted to a specific idea of, or a major influence on, Hayek. Foundational ideas incorporated into Hayek's thought are discussed (Darwinianism, German historicism, Austrian school economics) as are significant works that denoted major changes in his thought. Individual chapters deal with Mises, Keynes, Friedman and Popper, and another contrasts Hayek's thought with Marx, Mill, and Freud. Hayek's major economic thought is address in chapters devoted to both his early years and his later work. Ex-lib with stamp on top edge, residue on inside rear cover.

Hardcover. NY, David Mckay, 1st, 1964, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 329 pages. "This volume puts together as a continuous narrative the diary of Rutherford B. Hayes from March, 1875 to March 1881 - covering his nomination as the Republican candidate, the campaign of 1876, the disputed election and its compromise, and his Presidency. It is based on a typed copy of the original manuscript supplied by The Rutherford B. Hayes Library of Fremont, Ohio, and its director, Watt P. Marchman. Hayes was an inveterate diary keeper from his youth to his old age. In this record of the presidential years the diary is reproduced virtually in facsimile form. All misspellings, errors in punctuation, and other eccentricities have been retained, as have the deletions and gaps in the original copy." Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, STEWART TABORI CHANG, 1ST, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 378 pages. Here is a musical history told in legends, facts, and rumors every bit as colorful as the images that illustrate the book. The story is filled with characters such as O.V. Wright, a singer deemed "too ugly to tour"; Frnakie Lymon, who received a hot dog as full payment for some of the greatest R&B songs of all time; LaVern Baker, a.k.a. "Little Miss Sharecropper"; Bille Holiday shooting dice with the boys on the bus; Solomon Burke, R&B immortal and Doctor of Mortuary Sciences; soul ghoul Screamin' Jay Hawkins locked in his coffin by the Drifters; and many otehr talented and unique entertainers. Illustrated with more than 400 original photographs, publicity shots, posters, programs, advertisements, program covers, magazine covers, album covers and sleeves, sheet music, and record labels in full color, this is a story of hot music and high style, of people who made history by being themselves and made the world a richer, wilder and definitely cooler place for the rest of us.

Softcover. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, First Edition, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover published to accompany the exhibition, Church's Great Picture, The Heart of the Andes, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 5, 1993 - January 2, 1994. Clean, bright copy.

Chicago, Allen-Bennett, 1st, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket with light wear, chipping. 240 pages. This book is a good behind the scenes look at the business of Playboy and Hugh Hefner in the '60s and early '70s. The major focus is on the business side of the industry, Byer was a corporate Vice President of Marketing for the Playboy empire. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, England, Oxford University Press, 1st, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, 574 pages. Hardcover. Previous owner's name on front flyleaf with small notations (pencil) throughout. Black cover boards (some light chipping), gilt title on spine. Spine slightly cocked, doesn't affect binding. Dust jacket unclipped, has agewear: chipping, fading, some small tears (see image). This book provides an intellectual biography of Hegel from the Gymnasium years until he went to his first academic post at Jena.

Hardcover. UK, Polity Press, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue pictorial boards, 292 pages. This accessible and highly readable book is the first full-length biography of Hegel to be published since the largely outdated treatments of the nineteenth century. Althaus draws on new historical material and scholarly sources about the life and times of this most enigmatic and influential of modern philosophers. He paints a living portrait of a thinker whose personality was more complex than is often imagined, and shows that Hegel's relation to his revolutionary times was also more ambiguous than is usually accepted. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 168 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Very clean, unmarked copy still in shrink wrap. Color and black & white images throughout. Tight copy.

Hardcover. New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 168 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Very clean, unmarked copy still in shrink wrap. Color and black & white images throughout. Tight copy. Helena Rubinstein: Beauty Is Power traces the path of this remarkable early feminist and visionary art patron. In Rubinstein's world, art and commerce blended seamlessly. She ornamented her salons and homes with splendid artworks--Surrealist murals, modernist portraits, Art Deco furniture, Venetian mirrors, and one of the era's great collections of African and Oceanic art. Her understanding of beauty was similarly expansive and democratic: she saw the face as the site for self-expression and the exploration of identity. The Rubinstein beauty program thus included not only makeup and hairdressing, but also lessons in health, deportment, and culture. Such features, innovative at the time and wildly popular, today provide a fascinating glimpse into popular culture as it affected women in the 20th century.

Hardcover. Steidl, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 360 pages. In 1878, the Photographic Times claimed that ten minutes provided sufficient exposure for photographing a landscape. Six years earlier, an English immigrant to the West Coast named Eadweard Muybridge, going by the commercial name of Helios, had already pushed photography far in the opposite direction: not to soak up time into pictures, but to divide time with the quickest exposures then imaginable. In 1872, the tycoon Leland Stanford had commissioned Muybridge to photograph his horse, Occident, to determine whether it ever lifted all four hooves off the ground at once. In proving that this was indeed the case, Muybridge achieved a five-hundredth-of-a-second exposure, and so began an anatomy of motion-in humans, horses, birds-that exploded the possibilities of photography and ultimately led to the development of the motion picture. Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change offers an opportunity to trace the life and art of the great photographer. In the wake of a wave of recent scholarship and renewed interest, it pitches his entire body of work against the backdrop of one of the most transformative periods of American and European history. Published to accompany a retrospective exhibition organized by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Helios features essays by Philip Brookman, Marta Braun, Corey Keller and Rebecca Solnit that provide a variety of new approaches to Muybridge's art and influences.

Hardcover. Chicago, Henry Regnery, 1st US, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 214 pages with index. William Crockford, born in squalor in 1775, had an amazing ability to calculate odds accurately and shrewdly. In 1828 he opened Crockford's Club in Mayfair, where he accumulated a huge fortune, much of it at the expense of the English aristocracy. He was the father of modern bookmaking. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, HarperCollins, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 572 pages. The author as written an admirable book that pulls no punches in recounting Hellman and Hammett's flaboyant lives and compulsions. like new in a protective brodart.

Softcover. Sarasota FL, Pineapple Press, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 260 pages. Follow Ernest Hemingway's exploits on the Bahamian island of Bimini from 1935 to 1937, the very moment in time when the International Game Fish Association (under the author's co-leadership) was emerging. Covers Hemingway's role in the formation of the IGFA, his underappreciated seminal writing about competitive saltwater angling when the sport was still in its infancy, the amazing fishing he enjoyed on the island, and the way all of these experiences translated into the composition of his posthumous novel Islands in the Stream. This is the only book on this period in Hemingway's life and reveals unexpected dimensions to the Hemingway portrait that deserve attention, including his surprising humor, his advanced conservationist views several decades before the environmental movement even began, and his egalitarian ideas about his contemporary female counterparts in the big-game fishing world--challenging the usual portrait of Hemingway as a chauvinist with no personal rules, boundaries, or conscience. Includes beautiful vintage photographs of 1930s Bimini that have never been published in book form.

Softcover. Waitsfield VT, Vermont Crossroads Press, reprint, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 224 pages, b&w illustrations. Originally published in hardcover in 1966. Harbor Springs in northern Michigan was where the Hemingway family vacationed from Chicago as early as 1900, when Ernest was age 1. Trips there followed during his youth and into his early years as a professional writer. The setting of Walloon Lake and the region and characters of Little Traverse Bay found their way into some of his stories. Includes three of Hemingway's short stories originally published in the Oak Park (Ill. ) High School Tabula, here reprinted for the first time. Mild wear, INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR on the front fly leaf. Otherwise clean.

Hardcover. New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich , 1st, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Two hardcovers in a red cloth slipcase. Vol. 1: 234 illustrations., 76 in color, 356 pages. Vol. 2: 307 illustrations, 79 in color, 366 pages. Translated from French by Jean Stewart. Clean set. Some plates, and some photo panoramas, are foldout. A labor of love for the poet who knew Matisse well, and who worked for 27 years on this project. NOTE: DUE TO SIZE AND WEIGHT, DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 504 pages, b&w photographs. Newspaper and magazine clippings laid in. Light edge wear to dust jacket. Else a clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Berkeley , University of California Press, 1st, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn, unclipped dust jacket, 455 pages. This biography of Henry Thoreau offers insight into his social activism, his interest in fine arts, William Gilpin and John Ruskin's influence on his nature writing, and his involvement in, and influence by, the Agassiz-Darwin debate over "The Origin of Species." Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.