literature

Hardcover. NY/Oxford UK, Berghahn Books, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 232 pages, pictorial boards. Milena Jesenska, born in Prague in 1896, is most famous as one of Franz Kafka's great loves. Although their relationship lasted only a short time, it won the attention of the literary world with the 1952 publication of Kafka's letters to Milena. Her own letters did not survive. Later biographies showed her as a fascinating personality in her own right. In the Czech Republic, she is remembered as one of the most prominent journalists of the interwar period and as a brave one: in 1939 she was arrested for her work in the resistance after the German occupation of Bohemia and Moravia, and died in Ravensbruck concentration camp in 1944. It is estimated that Jesenska wrote well over 1,000 articles but only a handful have been translated into English. In this book her own writings provide a new perspective on her personality, as well as the changes in Central Europe between the two world wars as these were perceived by a woman of letters. The articles in this volume cover a wide range of topics, including her perceptions of Kafka, her understanding of social and cultural changes during this period, the threat of Nazism, and the plight of the Jews in the 1930s. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Harcourt Brace & World, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn, unclipped dust jacket. 217 pages, b&w photos. Stated first American edition of Woolf's memoirs. includes vignettes of Virginia Woolf and the Hogarth Press. Book reviews laid in. Edges, spine of dust jacket tanning. Otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Viking Press, 1st, 1954, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, two-tone blue cloth covers, 120 pages. The blackly comic play about the oppressed lives of women in 1950s New York. One of literature's leading humorists, Dorothy Parker drew from the dark side of her imagination to pen The Ladies of the Corridor, a searing drama about women living on their own in a New York residence hotel. Loosely based on Parker's life, and co-written with famed Hollywood playwright Arnaud d'Usseau, The Ladies of the Corridor exposes the limitations of a woman's life in a drama teeming with Parker's signature wit. This copy INSCRIBED BY FRANCES STARR on the front fly leaf who had a leading role in the play as Mrs. Nichols.

Hardcover. NY, Frederick Ungar, 1st thus, 1974, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 263 pages. 1st American Edition of this Abridged Translation. This is Kraus's masterpiece, with half of Europe as its stage. It is presented here in English for the first time, in an abridged version that preserves the essence of the 800-page original. Its influence on Brecht, Ionesco, and other playwrights is acknowledged. Mingling actual quotations, news reports, and government orders with Kraus's own satiric dialogue, this immense drama (never meaning to be performed) offers a vast fresco of events at the front and at home during, as it prophesied, the last days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Indeed, Kraus anticipated the development of atomic warfare and its threat to all mankind. Some of Kraus is untranslatable, but, as Stanley Kauffmann wrote in his New Republic review, "Ungar has done us a benefit at least by bringing us a bit closer to this sharp-eyed, angry, prickly, lover-hater of mankind." INSCRIBED BY FREDERICK UNGAR, the editor and publisher on the half-title page. He also wrote the 14 page introduction. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 480 pages, b&w illustrations. When Theodore Dreiser first published Sister Carrie in 1900 it was suppressed for its seamy plot, colloquial language, and immortality--for, as one reviewer put it, its depiction of "the godless side of American life." It was a side of life experienced firsthand by Dreiser, whose own circumstances often paralleled those of his characters in the turbulent, turn-of-the-century era of immigrants, black lynchings, ruthless industrialists, violent labor movements, and the New Woman. This masterful critical biography, the first on Dreiser in more than half a century, is the only study to fully weave Dreiser's literary achievement into the context of his life. Jerome Loving gives us a Dreiser for a new generation in a brilliant evocation of a writer who boldly swept away Victorian timidity to open the twentieth century in American literature. INSCRIBED BY LOVING ("Jerry") on the half-title page. Clean copy.

Softcover. San Francisco, North Point Press, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, white wraps, 439 pages, b&w photos. INSCRIBED BY ROREM on the frontfly leaf. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 654 pages. From the more than 4000 letters that have survived, the editors have selected some 400 letters of one of the most important 20th century authors, Edith Wharton. These range from a letter written when Wharton was twelve years old to a letter penned just before her death. The collection shows Wharton at her epistolary best and most characteristic and in all the striking variety of her many voices. Clean copt.

Hardcover. NY, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 654 pages. From the more than 4000 letters that have survived, the editors have selected some 400 letters of one of the most important 20th century authors, Edith Wharton. These range from a letter written when Wharton was twelve years old to a letter penned just before her death. The collection shows Wharton at her epistolary best and most characteristic and in all the striking variety of her many voices. Clean copt.

Hardcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 696 pages. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Columbia University Press, 1st, 1939, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Six matching volumes, red cloth bindings with black/gilt titling on spines, gilt initials on front board. Covers Emerson's letters from 1813 to 1881. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was an influential American essayist, philosopher, and poet, known for leading the Transcendentalist movement. His works emphasized individualism, nature, and self-reliance, significantly impacting American literature and thought. NOT ex-lib, clean complete set. Due to weight DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. NY, Abrams, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 400 pages. Edith Nesbit (1858-1924) is considered the first modern writer for children and the inventor of the children's adventure story. In The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit, award-winning biographer Eleanor Fitzsimons uncovers the little-known details of her life, introducing readers to the Fabian Society cofounder and fabulous socialite who hosted legendary parties and had admirers by the dozen, including George Bernard Shaw. Through Nesbit's letters and archival research, Fitzsimons reveals "E." to have been a prolific lecturer and writer on socialism and shows how Nesbit incorporated these ideas into her writing, thereby influencing a generation of children--an aspect of her literary legacy never before examined. Fitzsimons's riveting biography brings new light to the life and works of this famed literary icon, a remarkable writer and woman.

Hardcover. NY, Pantheon, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in an edgeworn, chipped dust jacket. This is the first detailed and balanced biography of one of the most controversial literary figures of the twentieth century. It includes much material - poetry, prose, and letters - which has not previously been published. Ezra Pound, an American who left home for Venice and London at the age of twenty-three, was a leading member of "the modern movement," a friend and helper of Joyce, Eliot, Yeats, and Hemingway, and an early supporter of Lawrence and Frost. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 408 pages. The only biographical account of More by one of his contemporaries. Ward's almost hagiographical tone is testimony to the high regard in which More was held by his admirers. This account testifies to the continuing impact of More's ideas in the enlightenment. This volume prints the only modern edition of Ward's biography printed in 1710 together with the manuscript account of More's writings published here for the first time. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 512 pages. The second volume in this masterful biography finds Hughes rooting himself in Harlem, receiving stimulation from his rich cultural surroundings. Here he rethought his view of art and radicalism, and cultivated relationships with younger, more militant writers such as Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Amiri Bakara. Illustrated with black & white photographs, a few by Roy DeCarava with whom Hughes published "The Sweet Flypaper of Life" and a portrait by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Charlottesville VA, University of Virginia Press, 1st, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 476 pages, b&w illustrations. Rollyson has drawn on an unprecedented amount of material to present the richest rendering of Faulkner yet published. In addition to his own extensive interviews, Rollyson consults the complete and never fully shared research of pioneering Faulkner biographer Joseph Blotner, who discarded from his authorized biography substantial findings in order to protect the Faulkner family. Rollyson also had unrivaled access to the work of Carvel Collins, whose decades-long inquiry produced one of the greatest troves of primary source material in American letters. This first volume follows Faulkner from his formative years through his introduction to Hollywood. Rollyson sheds light on Faulkner's unpromising, even bewildering youth, including a gift for tall tales that blossomed into the greatest of literary creativity. He provides the fullest portrait yet of Faulkner's family life, in particular his enigmatic marriage, and offers invaluable new insight into the ways in which Faulkner's long career as a screenwriter influenced his iconic novels. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Jonathan Cape, 1st, 1934, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth faded on spine and cover edges, gilt lettering on spine. 315 pages, b&w photographic plates. Some fifty essays, reviews, studies and other short pieces, including a section devoted to Williamson's travels in North America and passages from 'The Sun in the Sands' which do not appear in the 1941 book of the same name. No markings.

Hardcover. NY, Harcourt, Brace & World, 1st, 1955, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, Hardcover in a worn, chipped dust jacket, 309 pages. A collection of essays from the famed literary critic. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Charlestown MA, Printed and Sold By Samuel Etheridge, Revised Ed., 1810, Book: Very Good, Hardcovers, two volumes complete, 432 and 448 pages. bound in 3/4 calf, with red leather spine labels intact, bindings tight. New corrected edition. A collection of biographical studies on the life of important poets in the cannon of English literature, including: Cowley, Milton, Blackmore, Granville, Somerville, Thomson, Mallet, and Lyttelton. Written by Samuel Johnson, an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. With the original advertisement to the first edition. originally published in 1779-81. Light edgewear to covers, mild water stain to first 4 pages of Vol. 2, otherwise clean, mild foxing, very good set overall.

Hardcover. NY, HarperCollins, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. SIGNED BY PROSE on the title page. In a brilliant, wry, and provocative book, National Book Award finalist Francine Prose explores the complex relationship between the artist and his muse. In so doing, she illuminates with great sensitivity and intelligence the elusive emotional wellsprings of the creative process. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY/London, G. P. Putnum's Sons, 1st illust. thus, 1933, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, green cloth with gilt stamping, 242 pages. 24 woodcuts and some decorations by Tunnicliffe. First Illustrated Edition which has been enlarged by the author and contains several new essays. No dust jacket.

Hardcover. NY, Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1st, 1952, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a mildly soiled dust jacket with tanning to spine,name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Softcover. Baltimore MD, Johns Hopkins University, 1st pbk., 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 210 pages. Historian and literary scholar Christopher Celenza argues that serious interest in the intellectual life of Renaissance Italy can be reinvigorate, and the nature of the Renaissance itself re-accessed, by recovering a major part of its intellectual and cultural activity that has been largely ignored since the Renaissance was first "discovered": the vast body of works-literary, philosophical, poetic, and religious-written in Latin. Produced between the mid-fourteenth and the early sixteenth centuries by major figures such as Leonardo Bruni, Lorenzo Valla, Marsilio Ficino, and Leon Battista Alberti, as well as minor but interesting thinkers like Lapo da Castiglionchio the Younger, this literature was initially overlooked by scholars of the Renaissance because they were not written in the vernacular Italian which alone was seen as was the supreme expression of a culture. Clean copy.

Hardcover. University of Nebraska Press, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 592 pages. Ring Lardner's influence on American letters is arguably greater than that of any other American writer in the early part of the twentieth century. Lauded by critics and the public for his groundbreaking short stories, Lardner was also the country's best-known journalist in the 1920s and early 1930s, when his voice was all but inescapable in American newspapers and magazines. Lardner's trenchant, observant, sly, and cynical writing style, along with a deep understanding of human foibles, made his articles wonderfully readable and his words resonate to this day. Ron Rapoport has gathered the best of Lardner's journalism from his earliest days at the South Bend Times through his years at the Chicago Tribune and his weekly column for the Bell Syndicate, which appeared in 150 newspapers and reached eight million readers. In these columns Lardner not only covered the great sporting events of the era--from Jack Dempsey's fights to the World Series and even an America's Cup--he also wrote about politics, war, and Prohibition, as well as parodies, poems, and penetrating observations on American life.

Hardcover. NY, Seven Stories Press, 2nd pr., 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards, illustrated in color by Joanna Concejo. The Lost Soul is a deeply moving reflection on our capacity to live in peace with ourselves, to remain patient, attentive to the world. It is a story that beautifully weaves together the voice of the Nobel Prize-winning Polish novelist Olga Tokarczuk and the finely detailed wash-and-ink drawings of illustrator Joanna Concejo, who together create a parallel narrative universe full of secrets, evocative of another time. Here a man has forgotten what makes his heart feel full. He moves to a house away from all that is familiar to him to wait for his soul to return. Originally published in Poland in 2017. Clean copy.