literature

Hardcover. New York, Scribner's, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 428 pages. Light wear to dust jacket, else a very nice, tight copy. The author probes the complex life and work of Joseph Conrad, a Polish exile in England, his friendships with Ford, Crane, James, and Galsworthy, his varied works, and his affair with American journalist Jane Anderson.

Hardcover. London , Royal Academy of Arts , 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 272 pages, without dust jacket. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) was one of the 20th century's leading exponents of collage and assemblage. A connoisseur of an astonishing array of subjects, Cornell's captivation with bygone imagery encompassed astronomical charts and geographical maps, Italian and Spanish Old Master paintings, historical ballet, early film, literature, poetry and ornithology. Most iconic among his works are his box constructions-microcosmic curiosity cabinets-filled with once-precious fragments that he collected in thrift shops in his native New York. Joseph Cornell: Wanderlust is a landmark publication examining this remarkable work. It brings together some of Cornell's most compelling assemblages and box constructions (including Medici slot machines, soap-bubble sets and animal habitats). The contributors raise questions about Cornell's artistic processes while drawing parallels with historical modes of inquiry such as connoisseurship, exploration and classification.

Softcover. Bowling Green OH, Journal of Popular Culture, 1st, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, pages 701-909. Articles include: Philip Gordon on Ayn Rand. Louis F. Helbig on Struwwelpeter: an inquiry into the effects of violence in children's literature. French folk songs. D. L. Ashliman on the American Indian in German Travel Narratives and Literature. Clean.

Softcover. Bowling Green OH, Journal of Popular Culture, 1st, 1976, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, pages 1-258. Articles include: The tragedy of Bert Williams, mystery writer John D. MacDonald, Edward R. Murrow's WW2 radio broadcasts, the dance marathon craze, Spider-Man - Superhero in the Liberal Tradition, others. Clean.

Softcover. San Rafael CA, Coracle Press, reprint, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 330 pages, b&w frontis. A new printing of the journal and letters of Stephen Mackenna (1872-1934), a vivid and representative thinker whose life intersected with many of the leading figures of his day, and especially those of the Irish literary renaissance. The editor, E. R. Dodds, writes: Stephen MacKenna's working life was divided among three countries, and was further broken by two complete changes of occupation and by continual changes of residence. When he died, he left behind him no wife, child or lifelong friend; . . . and with the exception of the 1907-9 Journal no papers of any considerable biographical value. He left instead a legend. In the Memoir which follows I have endeavored to recover and present the facts underlying the legend. Best known for what AE (George William Russell) called his 'noble translation of Plotinus', MacKenna nonetheless harbored views that collided with those of Plotinus, and so speaks to us as an authentic forerunner of the 'modern' human being, by which is meant those who, once their individual inner light is lit-and no matter how it may gutter in the wind of uncertain freedoms-must, even while hallowing earlier and magisterial records of paths of spiritual ascent, accept the need for a complete 'descent' (without which the whole engine of creation will have had no final purpose), with all the provisional darkness this may entail, so that the final ascent may be made in personal love and freedom. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. NY, Random House, 1st, 1939, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, textured beige cloth, moderately soiled. No edition or printing stated on copyright page. Illustrated with 32 pages of b/w photographs, as well as endpaper maps, red and black frontispiece illustration. The story of the trip Auden and Isherwood made to China during its war with Japan, prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. Includes 32 pages of photographs, as well as several sonnets and one long poem by Auden. Narrative written by Isherwood. There is a tan stain that goes across pages 68-69, that looks like a rorschach test. Otherwise clean.

Hardcover. London, Faber and Faber Limited, 1st, 1959, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in an edgeworn dust jacket, 334 pages. The editor has chosen excerpts from de Tocquville's 14 notebooks he kept on his visit to America 1831-32. The detailed notes were the raw material that became his classic Democracy In America. Many of these observations never made into the final work. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, New York University Press, 1st, 1968, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 200 pages. Joyce Cary long a popular author among discriminating readers, is gaining a wider audience for his novels every year. This critical study of his work considers the developing relationship between his matter and his manner. It especially emphasizes his growth as artist and thinker. Looking closely at the language and structure of Cary's books, the author examines all the novels- the African ones, the historical ones, and the two trilogies most of them in detail. To gain an overall view he also considers Cary's nonfiction and some as yet unpublished material. While this study is essentially non-biographical, it does analyze Cary's interpretations of history, sociology and politics as they are gathered from the actions and words of his colorful characters. One of the most intriguing features of Dr. Wolkenfeld's book is the dialogue between characters of the various novels, where likenesses as well as dissimilarities, which reveal so much about Cary as a writer, become evident. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Livingston, MT, Clack City Press, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 318 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, tight copy with minor wear to edges.

Hardcover. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth with gilt lettering on spine, 266 pages. Ex-lib with a small stamp to title page and top edge, label on spine. Otherwise a clean, bright copy. After Franz Kafka died in 1924, his novels and short stories were published in ways that downplayed both their author's roots in Prague and his engagement with Jewish tradition and language, so as to secure their place in the German literary canon. Now, nearly a century after Kafka began to create his fictions, Germany, Israel, and the Czech Republic lay claim to his legacy. Kafka's Jewish Languages brings Kafka's stature as a specifically Jewish writer into focus. David Suchoff explores the Yiddish and modern Hebrew that inspired Kafka's vision of tradition. Citing the Jewish sources crucial to the development of Kafka's style, the book demonstrates the intimate relationship between the author's Jewish modes of expression and the larger literary significance of his works. No dust jacket.

Hardcover. Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1st, 1976, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly faded dust jacket. 569 pages, b&w photos. An authentic church father of the Post-Reformation era, the Basel professor's contributions to theology, the life of the church, and the world of culture and politics have been frequently noted. This work presents extraordinary new information and insight based on his own correspondence and notes.What one finds in this work is Barth's own running commentary on events and people - from 1886 to 1968. Everything is depicted from his perspective and chiefly in his own words, and this is precisely what makes the volume so fascinating and valuable. The brilliance, wit, and humanity of Barth shine through everywhere as he is seen as son, brother, student, editor, friend, pastor, husband, father, soldier, teacher, theologian, church leader, political critic, polemicist, ecumenist, author, preacher, music lover, senior citizen. Light pencil notes to margins to some pages.

Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown & Company , 1st US, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 194 pages. Translated by Ewald Osers. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st thus, 1951, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth, 701 pages. The first complete publication of this long series of love letters. Spine darkened, no dust jacket, clean copy.

Softcover. Rochester VT, Healing Arts Press, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 255 pages, b&w illustrations. This complete guide to kava summarizes the literature and research on a plant that is now considered comparable or superior to anti-stress prescription drugs, and describes its use in the religious, political, and economic life of the Pacific islands for centuries. Beyond its soporific qualities kava is also used throughout the the Pacific as an analgesic, a diuretic, and an anesthetic. There is even evidence suggesting it is effective in the treatment of asthma, tuberculosis, and venereal disease. Exhaustively researched, Kava: The Pacific Elixir offers an extensive survey of this amazing plant from the perspective of the horticulturist, the ethnobotanist, and the pharmacologist. Clean copy.

Hardcover. UK, Oxford University Press, 2nd pr., 1926, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pale orange cloth with title on spine label. Former copy belonging to COUNTEE CULLEN (1903-1946), with his signature on the front fly leaf. Cullen was an American poet, novelist, children's writer, and playwright, particularly well known during the Harlem Renaissance. 248 pages, b&w frontis. Small paper scars to front endpapers, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1st, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 281 pages, b&w illustrations. "For, Lo! We live in an Iron Age--In the age of Steam and Fire!" wrote a poet mesmerized by the engines that were transforming American transportation, agriculture, and industry during his lifetime. Indeed, by the nineteenth century fire had become America's leitmotif--for good and for ill. "Keeping the flame" was deadly serious: even the slightest lapse of attention could convert a fire from friendly ally to ravaging destroyer. To examine the cultural context of fire in "combustible America," Margaret Hazen and Robert Hazen gather more than a hundred illustrations, most never before published, together with anecdotes and information from hundreds of original sources, including newspapers, diaries, company records, popular fiction, art, and music. What results is an immensely entertaining and encyclopedic history that ranges from stories of the tragic "great fires" of the century to fire imagery in folktales and popular literature. Dealing more with technology than with fire in nature, the book provides a vast amount of information on fire manipulation and prevention in urban life. Hazen and Hazen discuss the people who worked with fire--or against it. Founders, gaffers, blacksmiths, boilers at saltworks, and housewives knew how to "read" a fire and employ it for their purposes. A few dedicated investigators inquired about the scientific nature of heat and flame. And firefighters gradually progressed from "bucket brigades" to "using fire to fight fire" with the newly invented steam engine. The colorful stories of these Americans--the risks they took and the rewards they received--will fascinate not only social historians but also a broad audience of general readers. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Columbia MO, University of Missouri Press, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 356 pages. Eleanor Roosevelt called her one of the most influential women in America. Among the earliest and most assertive members of the Book-of-the-Month Club selection committee, Dorothy Canfield Fisher helped define literary taste in America for more than three decades. She helped shape the careers of such great writers as Pearl Buck, Isak Dinesen, and Richard Wright. A best-selling author herself, Fisher was also a deeply committed social activist. In Keeping Fires Night and Day, Mark J. Madigan collects much of Fisher's copious correspondence. With letters to Willa Cather, W.E.B. Du Bois, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Margaret Mead, James Thurber, and E.B. White, he documents Fisher's personal and professional life and career in a way that no biography could. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Columbia MO, University of Missouri Press, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 356 pages with index, b&w illustrations. Eleanor Roosevelt called her one of the most influential women in America. Among the earliest and most assertive members of the Book-of-the-Month Club selection committee, Dorothy Canfield Fisher helped define literary taste in America for more than three decades. She helped shape the careers of such great writers as Pearl Buck, Isak Dinesen, and Richard Wright. A best-selling author herself, Fisher was also a deeply committed social activist. In Keeping Fires Night and Day, Mark J. Madigan collects much of Fisher's copious correspondence. With letters to Willa Cather, W.E.B. Du Bois, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Margaret Mead, James Thurber, and E.B. White, he documents Fisher's personal and professional life and career in a way that no biography could. Set against the American historical and cultural landscape from 1900 to 1958, these letters offer a firsthand account of one of the twentieth century's most remarkable women.

Hardcover. Cleveland, World Publishing, 1st, 1959, Book: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn, price-clipped dust jacket, mild soil to rear panel. In-depth biography of the author most well known for 'The Wind In The Willows', which also includes extensive information on the societal changes of the time. 399 pages with Index, Bibliography, and Notes, 6" X 8-3/4", several black and white photos through the text. There is small discard stamp on front fly leaf, no other markings.

Hardcover. New York, Random House, 1st US, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 638 pages. Hardcover. Illustrated with black & white photographs. Minor rubbing to surface of dust jacket. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Harry N Abrams, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 264 pages, illustrated throughout in b&w. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. "A lavish, information-packed look at the people and places of an important, exciting era in art history. "?Publishers Weekly.From 1900 to 1930, Montparnasse was the center of artistic life for the whole world. A major contribution to the social and cultural history of the period? with its informative text and hundreds of photographs?. As The Washington Post said, Kiki's Paris "celebrates the people who made the modern movement in art, music and literature, most of whom were friends or lovers of Kiki, the woman Hemingway called 'The Queen of Montparnasse.'"

Hardcover. London, Jonathan Cape, Reprint, 1960, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 350 pages. Previous owners stamp on front endpaper. Dust jacket shows standard wear. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2nd, 1968, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 338 pages. Hardcover with NO dust jacket. Fading overall to red cover boards, spine heavily faded. Light pencil markings throughout, otherwise, tight copy.

Hardcover. New York, Thomas Y. Crowell, 1st, 1913, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 125 pages. Red Cloth Boards. Front endpaper missing. Small black stain at top of front hinge. Foxing on top edge. Otherwise, clean, tight copy.