Biography

Hardcover. NY, Riverhead, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 349 pages. A heartwarming memoir describes growing up in Czechoslovakia during the 1970s as the child of dissidents involved with the failed Prague Spring uprising in a loving family--her mother, the disowned daughter of two Party elite parents; her inventor and cab driver father; her beautiful teenage sister; and her dog, a famed Czech TV star. Clean copy.

Athens GA, University Of Georgia Press, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 464 pages. Caroline Ferguson Gordon (1895-1981) was a notable American novelist and literary critic who, while still in her thirties, was the recipient of two prestigious literary awards, a 1932 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 1934 O. Henry Award . Offers the most complete and accurate portrait to date of the writer. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Wiley, 2nd pr., 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The long-awaited, untold, inside story of the rise of the legendary actor, singer, scholar, and activist. The first volume of this major biography breaks new ground. The greatest scholar-athlete-performing artist in U.S. history, Paul Robeson was one of the most compelling figures of the twentieth century.Now his son, Paul Robeson Jr., traces the dramatic arc of his rise to fame, painting a definitive picture of Paul Robeson's formative years. His father was an escaped slave; his mother, a descendent of freedmen; and his wife, the brilliant and ambitious Eslanda Cardozo Goode. With a law degree from Columbia University; a professional football career; title roles in Eugene O'Neill's plays and in Shakespeare's Othello; and a concert career in America and Europe, Robeson dominated his era. 383 pages, b&w illustrations. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Jonathan Cape, 1st, 1937, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth with gilt lettering on spine. Frontiepiece photograph of the author as Lord Beaconsfield. 392 pages. Autobiography dealing with the author's life up to the mid 1930s. He was the brother of A E Housman, and was well-known in his own right as a writer of plays, as well as being active in the women's suffrage campaign and in the pacifist movement. A prolific writer with around a hundred published works to his name, Housman's output eventually covered all kinds of literature from socialist and pacifist pamphlets to children's stories. He wrote an autobiography, The Unexpected Years (1937), which, despite his record of controversial writing, said little about his homosexuality, the practice of which was then illegal. Mild shelf wear. Clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Carroll & Graf, Softcover, 500 pages. A twentieth-century photographer, artist, writer and designer for more than fifty years, Cecil Beaton was at the center of the worlds of fashion, society, theater and film. This book brings together for the first time the never-before-published diaries from 1970 to 1980 and, unlike the six slim volumes of diaries published during his lifetime, these have been left uniquely unedited. Hugo Vickers, the executor of Beaton's estate and the author of his acclaimed biography, has added extensive notes that are as lively as the diary entries themselves. Here is the photographer for British and American Vogue, designer of the sets and costumes for the play and film My Fair Lady and the film Gigi, with a cast of characters from many worlds, at shooting parties in the English countryside, on yachts, at garden parties at Buckingham Palace, at costume balls in Venice, Paris or London. Clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Carroll & Graf, Softcover, 500 pages. A twentieth-century photographer, artist, writer and designer for more than fifty years, Cecil Beaton was at the center of the worlds of fashion, society, theater and film. This book brings together for the first time the never-before-published diaries from 1970 to 1980 and, unlike the six slim volumes of diaries published during his lifetime, these have been left uniquely unedited. Hugo Vickers, the executor of Beaton's estate and the author of his acclaimed biography, has added extensive notes that are as lively as the diary entries themselves. Here is the photographer for British and American Vogue, designer of the sets and costumes for the play and film My Fair Lady and the film Gigi, with a cast of characters from many worlds, at shooting parties in the English countryside, on yachts, at garden parties at Buckingham Palace, at costume balls in Venice, Paris or London. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Fordham University Press, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 234 pages. INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR on the half-title page. The writer Giuseppe Prezzolini said that Italian immigrants left behind tears and sweat but not "words," making their lives in America mostly in silence, their memories private and stories untold. In this innovative portrait of the Italian-American experience, these lives are no longer hidden. Ilaria Serra offers the first comprehensive study of a largely ignored legacy-the autobiographies written by immigrants. Here she looks closely at fifty-eight representative works written during the high tide of Italian migration. Scouring archives, discovering diaries, and memoirs in private houses and forgotten drawers, Serra recovers the voices of the first generation-bootblacks and poets, film directors and farmers, miners, anarchists, andseamstresses-compelled to tell their stories. Mostly unpublished, often thickly accented, these tales of ordinary men and women are explored in nuanced detail, organized to reflect how they illuminate the realities ofwork, survival, identity, and change.

Softcover. NY, Picador, 1st pbk, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 436 pages, color and b&w photos. It's 1983. A young Englishwoman arrives in Manhattan on a mission. Summoned in the hope that she can save Conde Nast's troubled new flagship Vanity Fair, Tina Brown is plunged into the maelstrom of competitive New York media. She survives the politics and the intrigue by a simple stratagem: succeeding. Here are the inside stories of the scoops and covers that sold millions: the Reagan kiss, the meltdown of Princess Diana's marriage to Prince Charles, the sensational Annie Leibovitz cover of a gloriously pregnant, naked Demi Moore. Written with dash and verve, the diary is also a sharply observed account of New York and London society. In its cinematic pages the drama, comedy and struggle of raising a family and running an 'it' magazine come to life. The irreverent diaries of Tina Brown's eight spectacular years as editor in chief of Vanity Fair. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. NY, Chartwell, 2000, Book: N, Hardcover, 448 pages. Virtually every structure that Wright built is represented in this extensive survey of his life's work. His genius at architectural design enable him to work out extremely complex buildings in his head and translate them on to paper in a matter of hours, as the famous story of his design presentation of Falling Water illustrates. His work continues to draw great admiration and interest to this day. His often tempestuous and sometimes tragic life and career are given full coverage in this book. Hundreds of photos, both archival and recent chart his amazing work and influence on all who followed. This concise consideration of Wright's life and work not only offers new insights into the character of this complex, powerful and at all times confident personality, but also the architectural legacy he left behind and which exists to this day in the vast number of homes and public buildings photographed mainly by the author himself.

Hardcover. Lanham MD, Lyons Press , 1st, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 300 pages. James M. Cain was among the prominent member of the "hard-boiled" school of writing that characterized the 1930s and 1940s, one of the masters of the genre that included Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. His novels became such popular film noir classics as The Postman always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, and Mildred Pierce, and his 1937 novel Serenade boldly portrayed its hero as a bisexual. Cain also taught journalism at various colleges in Maryland, wrote editorials for the New York World, and was for a brief time managing editor at The New Yorker. This is the first biography of James M. Cain written with the full cooperation of the late novelist's family.

Softcover. NY, New York University Press, 1st pbk, 1978, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 272 pages. With bibliography and index. A complete biography of Dahlberg's life and career with an examination of the writings. Contains fourteen illustrations. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Crown Publishing, 1st, 2024, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Charting the course of her remarkable life and career, MacLaine shares both early memories (her childhood with her brother, Warren Beatty; her decision to leave for New York City at age sixteen; her early work dancing on Broadway) as well as remembrances of her days in the public eye (campaigning for George McGovern, traveling to meet political luminaries, starring in legendary film roles, and developing an interest in spirituality). Along the way, readers gain greater insight into figures such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bob Fosse, Jack Nicholson, the Dalai Lama, Fidel Castro, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and many more. Whether she's sharing what advice Elvis Presley asked her for, how she consoled close friend Elizabeth Taylor after the death of her husband, or which head of state she discussed UFOs with, MacLaine offers her most visual and delightful book yet, giving readers an unprecedented glance into a life like no other. Profusely illustrated in b&w from her personal photo collection. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Dodd Mead, 3rd pr., 1943, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, bright red cloth stamped in black. Endpapers map, b&w photographs. 410 pages. The widow of Carl Akeley, naturalist, tells the story back of the exhibits for which he was responsible in the Natural History Museum in New York. This is virtually a biography, with that as a focus; it is a record of the uphill struggle to get the chance to do the thing for which he was gifted and trained; the experiences securing his speciments, adventures in the wilderness, African jungles, the Belgian Congo, the Uganda frontier -- and the immense concentration on details to get the exhibits together and to present them with complete fidelity. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Washington DC, National Gallery of Art , 1st, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards with blue cloth spine. In 1860 James McNeill Whistler and Joanna Hiffernan met and began a significant professional and personal relationship. Hiffernan posed as a model for many of Whistlers works, including his controversial Symphony in White paintings, a trilogy that fascinated and challenged viewers with its complex associations with sex and morality, class and fashion, academic and realist art, Victorian popular fiction, aestheticism and spiritualism. This luxuriously illustrated volume provides the first comprehensive account of Hiffernan's partnership with Whistler throughout the 1860s and 1870s a period when Whistler was forging a reputation as one of the most innovative and influential artists of his generation. A series of essays discusses how Hiffernan and Whistler overturned artistic conventions and sheds light on their interactions with contemporaries, including Gustave Courbet, for whom she also modeled. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. NY, Knopf , 1st, 1976, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, price-clipped dust jacket. The author's first book about growing up in Stockton, California with her immigrant parents from a small peasant village in China.

Hardcover. London, Methuen, reprint, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 256 pages illustrated in color and b&w. Ernest Howard Shepard was an English artist and book illustrator, best remembered for his charming illustrations of the beloved anthropomorphic animals in The Wind in the Willows and Winnie-the-Pooh. This fascinating study of Shepard, detailing his childhood, education and artistic development, is richly illustrated throughout with his works. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Arco Publishing , 1st, 1978, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover. Profusely illustrated throughout, some color. 244 pages. A visual survey of much of Adam's work, provides ample material for a critical appraisal of the development of Adam as architect and designer.

Hardcover. Lanham MD, Rowman & Littlefield , 1st, 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, glossy pictorial boards, 374 pages. This new biography of Ian Fleming presents a fresh and illuminating portrayal of the iconic creator of James Bond. Oliver Buckton provides the first in-depth exploration of the entire process of Ian Fleming's writing--from initial conception, through composition, to his involvement in the innovative publication methods of his books. He also investigates the vital impact of Fleming's work in naval intelligence during World War Two on his later writings, especially the wartime operations he planned and executed and how they drove the plots of the James Bond novels. Buckton considers the vital role of wartime deception, disinformation, and propaganda in shaping Fleming's later techniques and imaginative creations. Offering a radically new view of Fleming's relationships with women, Buckton traces the role of strong, independent, and intelligent women such as Maud Russell, Phyllis Bottome, and his wife, Ann, on Fleming's portrayal of female characters. The book concludes with a thorough analysis of the James Bond films from Eon productions, and their influence in promoting, while also distorting, the public's recognition of Fleming's writing. Clean copy.

Softcover. Woodstok VT, The Woodstock Foundation, 1st, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 123 pages, b&w illustrations. SIGNED BY JANE AND WILL CURTIS on the front fly leaf. This work was published in observance of the 100th anniversary of Marsh's death in 1882. It graphically portrays the many-faceted career of this extraordinarily versatile Vermonter. Marsh is best known for his pioneering environmental study, Man and Nature, which was first published in 1864. Marsh was a lawyer, linguist, businessman, farmer, designer, Congressman, and diplomat (he was Minister to Turkey and to the newly-united Kingdom of Italy, where he spent the last twenty-one years of his life, a tour of duty unprecedented in American diplomacy). In Congress he supported creating of the Smithsonian Institution.

Hardcover. Wisconsin, Stanton & Lee Publishers, Inc., 1st, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 240 pages. SIGNED BY OWEN GROMME. Color and b/w illustrations throughout. "SIGNED" sticker on front cover. Dust cover shows wear: some chipping on spine and edges, small tears along edges, light fading. Boards in great shape, only very light fading along bottom edges. From the dust jacket front flap: "...presents the life and art of a man who through eight decades of accomplishment as a naturalist and artist has provided us with a link between the 19th and 21st centuries."

Hardcover. New York, Artisan, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 207 pages. Black & white and color illustrations by William Steig. Introduction by John Updike. A study of the life and work of the eminent cartoonist, New Yorker cover artist, and humorist. Steig also served as art director of the New Yorker.

Hardcover. New York, Artisan, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 207 pages. Black & white and color illustrations by William Steig. Introduction by John Updike. A study of the life and work of the eminent cartoonist, New Yorker cover artist, and humorist. Steig also served as art director of the New Yorker.

Hardcover. New York, Artisan, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 207 pages. Black & white and color illustrations by William Steig. Introduction by John Updike. A study of the life and work of the eminent cartoonist, New Yorker cover artist, and humorist. Steig also served as art director of the New Yorker.