literature

Softcover. NY, Avon Books, reprint, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 511 pages, b&w illustrations. Britain's most illustrious SF writer, Brian Aldiss, provides a witty and perceptive history of this extraordinary phenomenon, set in its social and literary context. Crammed with fascinating insights, this generous spree takes us through decades of treats for the escape to other dimensions, flights to other planets, lost worlds, utopias, mechanical creatures and intelligent aliens. Amusing, intelligent and authoritative, it takes us on a tour through that zone where literature and science engage in an eternal flirtation. Examining the great writers SF has produced, and the images that have become the cultural wallpaper of the present day, this comprehensive expedition is for buffs and tenderfoots alike. Remainder line to bottom edge otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Grove Press, 2nd pr., 1961, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcpver in green boards with dark green cloth spine, titles stamped in gilt. Dust jacker shows edgewear and chipping, with $7.50 on flap. Top edge stained green. Framed gilt facsimile of Miller's signature to front of green boards. Clean, tight, bright. 348 pp. First published in 1939 in France, it took over 20 years to be cleared for publishing in the United States. Despite the ban, Miller has been one of the most influential figures in American literature. "The completion of his seven-volume autobiography, if it fulfills the promise of what he has already given us, will put his name amongst the three or four great figures of the age."

Softcover. Los Angeles, Getty Conservation Institute, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 138 pages illustrated in color. As the Roman Empire expanded its African settlements in the early centuries of the common era, thousands of mosaic floor pavements were fashioned to adorn the townhouses and rural estates of the African upper classes. Between the second and sixth centuries, mosaic art blossomed, particularly in Africa Proconsularis, the region comprising modern Tunisia. In contrast to the official art of imperial Rome, mosaics generally expressed the worldviews of private citizens. These artworks are remarkable for the intricate beauty of their polychromatic geometric and floral designs, as well as for figural scenes depicting the interests and activities of the patrons who commissioned them--scenes of daily life, athletic contests, gladiator spectacles, and classical literature and mythology.Abundantly illustrated throughout, Tunisian Mosaics: Treasures from Roman Africa offers the general reader a lively introduction to this extraordinary ancient art. Initial chapters survey the historical background of Roman Africa and discuss the development of mosaic art in the Mediterranean. Subsequent chapters profile Tunisia's major mosaic sites and tour the collections of important museums. A final chapter surveys current initiatives to preserve this heritage for future generations. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Random House, 1st US, 1978, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 382 pages. A biography of Ivan Turgenev, 19th-century Russian writer. The book is not a critical examination of Turgenev's literary output, but, of the man himself - enigmatic and unknown - and the world in which he lived, and the people he knew and associated with. Clean copy.

Softcover. Madison, MN, The Seventies Press, 1st pbk, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Softcover, 81 pages. Translated. by Lewis Hyde and Robert Bly.Edited by Lewis Hyde. Winner of the 1977 Nobel Prize for Literature. Mild fade to edges of dust jacket.

Hardcover. New York, Fred De Fau & Company, 1901, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Two volumes, hardcovers.798 pages total. B/w frontispieces with tissue guards. B/w illustrations throughout. Top edges gilt. Dark green cloth boards, gilt titles on spines, some light shelf wear. Tanning to pages and edges from age. Bindings good. Pages unmarked. Spines straight. A sequel to The Three Musketeers in which the four soldiers were brought together again after years of separation. They will live to repeat the glorious performances of their youth.

Hardcover. Princton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Fairy tales, often said to be ''timeless'' and fundamentally ''oral,'' have a long written history. However, argues Elizabeth Wanning Harries in this provocative book, a vital part of this history has fallen by the wayside. The short, subtly didactic fairy tales of Charles Perrault and the Grimms have determined our notions about what fairy tales should be like. Harries argues that alongside these ''compact'' tales there exists another, ''complex'' tradition: tales written in France by the conteuses (storytelling women) in the 1690s and the late-twentieth-century tales by women writers that derive in part from this centuries-old tradition. Grounded firmly in social history and set in lucid prose, Twice upon a Time refocuses the lens through which we look at fairy tales.

Hardcover. NY, Henry Holt & Co., 1st, 1926, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, light gray boards with a black cloth spine with gilt lettering. Name and ownership stamp on front fly leaf, otherwise clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Random House, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 179 pages. The author discusses the influence of John Updike on his novels, explains what features of Updike's writings he finds most attractive, and examines the life of a writer. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 200 pages. Critical essays on Charles Simic, John Ashbery, Stephen Dobyns and Charles Wright. SIGNED on title page by Stitts, also INSCRIBED on the front fly leaf by him. Personal letter from author also laid in. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1st U.S., 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 250 pages. Light blue and tan cloth cover, gilt lettering, very little wear. Dust jacket has minor wear to edges. Inside is bright and clean. A nice copy.

Softcover. Saint Paul MN, Graywolf Press, 1st, 1978, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 53 pages. Gallagher was born in 1943 in Washington state, and studied at the University of Washington under Theodore Roethke. She later married the poet and writer Raymond Carver.

Softcover. NY, The Feminist Press, 1ST, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 400 pages, b&w illustrations. The memoir of a young Catholic women's affair with a pastor in Italy. INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR on the half-title page. A few pages with light pencil underlining., otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1st, 1980, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 204 pages. This is a book of essays, including: On Paul Goodman, Approaching Artaud, Fascinating Fascism, Under the Sign of Saturn, Syberberg's Hitler, Remembering Barthes, and, Mind as Passion. This particular book was printed in a small initial run. 'Susan Sontag (January 16, 1933 - December 28, 2004) was an American writer, film-maker, teacher, and political activist. She published her first major work, the essay 'Notes on 'Camp'', in 1964. Her best-known works include On Photography, Against Interpretation, Styles of Radical Will, The Way We Live Now, Illness as Metaphor, Regarding the Pain of Others, The Volcano Lover, and In America. Remainder mark to top edge otherwise a tight, clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1st, 1980, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. A collection of seven essays. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Viking, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 554 pages. This compilation of correspondence is aptly titled. British travel writer and novelist Chatwin traveled widely, constantly, and obsessively--everywhere under the sun, in other words. He possessed a restless soul, to be sure. And to a large degree, he was secretive; information about his homosexuality and his affliction with the AIDS virus was closely guarded. He cast a personal spell with his charm and a lasting one through his works, which are so imaginative they are pure excitement to read; at the same time, however, it can be confusing to determine whether to see them as fiction or nonfiction. Nevertheless, beginning with his first published book, In Patagonia (1977), Chatwin maintained a reputation among discerning readers for his riveting characters--invented or not is unimportant, even in his travel books--and his rigorously precise writing style. Chatwin's wife and his biographer (Bruce Chatwin, 2000) combined efforts over a two-decade period to retrieve more than 90 percent of Chatwin's correspondence from childhood to immediately before his untimely death at 48. Chatwin's many appreciators will see the compilation in its overall significance as a personal visit with one of their literary heroes, as much as that is possible now. Remainder line on bottom edge otherwise like new.

Hardcover. Athens GA, University of Georgia Press, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 464 pages, b&w photographs. Light edge wear to dust jacket. Else a very clean, tight copy. This biography offers the most complete and accurate portrait to date of the writer Caroline Gordon (1895-1981). Viewing Gordon's life in the context of female literary tradition, Nancylee Novell Jonza reclaims Gordon's integrity, individuality, and artistic vision from beneath a self-effacing, sometimes detractive, public image carefully fostered by the artist herself. Gordon's nine novels and three short-story collections are a major contribution in their own right to the southern literary renaissance. Despite an enduring readership, however, she still remains in the shadow of her husband, Allen Tate, the Fugitive Poet and Agrarian critic, partially due to her contrived persona of a traditional southern lady turned artist under the tutelage of a gifted, benevolent male writer. Drawing on manuscript drafts, unpublished works, letters, and a significant body of her journalistic writing, Jonza investigates fully the causes and effects of Gordon's self-mythologizing and covers substantially more ground than the thirty years during which she was closest to Tate.

Softcover. UK, Cambridge University Press, 8th pr., 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 751 pages. -In this wide-ranging book, based on her Gifford Lectures, philosopher Nussbaum draws on philosophy, psychology, anthropology, music and literature to illuminate the role emotions play in thoughts about important goals. Clean, bright copy.

NY, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Uphill with Archie is a beautifully written and deeply involving look at the life and the world of the great literary icon, poet Archibald MacLeish, by his youngest son. Partly an homage, partly an attempt to come to terms with the man (and the legend), Uphill with Archie speaks to all sons and daughters who have never completely resolved their feelings about powerful parents. Young William MacLeish grew up both captivated and cowed by the fame of a father who won Pulitzer Prizes for his poetry and comparable honors for his work as a lawyer, playwright, teacher, and government official. William's mother, Ada, began her marriage as a successful concert singer in Paris but later felt compelled to give up her art for her family. When Archie was working for Henry Luce and Fortune magazine, his younger children, watched over by a governess, stayed with their grandfather in Connecticut. But it is of the time spent with his family at Uphill Farm, a beautiful old house above a Massachusetts hilltown, that MacLeish has his fondest and most telling memories: "Archie and Ada gave me great gifts: music, the sound of the language beautifully spoken, the draw of knowledge, the arts of humor," William writes. "I learned to perform for them, and in time found myself addicted to getting a nice tan from Archie's sun. And the more I bathed in his light, the harder I found it to go looking for my own."

Softcover. Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 287 pages. Because Naipaul's work occupies such an important place in English literature today, it is necessary to understand the forces that shape his work and the issues with which he is concerned. If this study raises some of the more important questions about Naipaul's work and demonstrates that is cannot be seen as an unproblematic guide to post colonial "reality," then it would have gone a long way toward opening up the terrain in which the most meaningful discussion of his work can take place. Like it or not, Naipaul's work represents an important postcolonial impulse/response that begs to be understood and interpreted. Clean, bright copy.

Softcover. Munich, self-published, 1st, 1959, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 80 pages, bound in stiff paper wrappers illustrated by Edward Gorey. In an age-toned glassine wrapper. The paper spine has separated from the binding but sound and very repairable. Limited to 300 copies, this copy INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR to Nora and Roger(Roger Shattuck, literary historian and critic, and his wife).

Hardcover. London, Jill Norman and Hobhouse, 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket with a mild crease to the front panel. 144 pages. Selections from the several volumes of family albums in the archive at Charleston; portraits cover most of the Bloomsbury circle's members, relations and/or adherents over a 50-year period. Introduction by Quentin Bell. Top edge scrape to front board. Bookplate on inside front cover, small ownership stamp to front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Dodd, Mead & Company, 1st, 1903, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, maroon cloth, 269 pages, frontis of author. First Printing; "Published September 1903" and 1903 date On title page. In this volume Mr. Chesterton presents nearly twenty of the ingenious and brilliant papers which delighted and puzzled the readers of the London Daily News and Speaker. The profiles are all biographical, ranging from Alfred the Great to Bret Harte. Chesterton delves into a range of subjects, including notable authors such as Charlotte Bronte, William Morris, and Byron, providing insightful commentary on their contributions to literature and thought. The opening of "Varied Types" sets the stage by discussing the complexities of biography, particularly focusing on Charlotte Bronte. Chesterton argues that external details about a person's life often overshadow the profound truths expressed in their work. Covers shelfworn, Private library bookplate on inside front cover, otherwise a clean copy.

Hardcover. Madras, The Adyar Library, Reprint, 1953, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Non-paginated. Hardcover. Text in Sanskrit and English. Previous owners name on front endpaper with brief note opposite. Light, neat notes in pen and pencil on some pages in first section of text. Overall, very good.