Softcover. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1st, 1976, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover. White glossy covers with b&w photographic plate of Louise Nevelson, perfect binding, introduction by John Canaday, profusely illustrated throughout with large b&w plates. Light rubbing to covers; otherwise a very clean, tight copy in great condition.
Hardcover. NY, St. Martin's Press, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 495 pages, color and b&w photos. In a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Remainder dot on top edge.
Hardcover. NY, St. Martin's Press, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 495 pages, color and b&w photos. In a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Remainder dot on top edge.
Hardcover. NY, St. Martin's Press, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 495 pages, color and b&w photos. In a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Remainder dot on top edge.
Hardcover. NY, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 400 pages, b&w illustrations. A touching, brilliant and ground-breaking biography of one of literary history's most famous couple, at once a dual biography, a history, and the portrait of a long and stormy marriage. In a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Remainder line on bottom edge.
Hardcover. NY, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 400 pages. In 1897 Tolstoy wrote his daughter Tonya, explaining his opposition to her desired marriage: "As far as love is concerned, it's an ignoble and unhealthy sentiment-I would not have opened my door to it." Perhaps this passage reflects the turbulent marriage of Leo and Sonya-first the promise of love and then disillusionment. Certainly, there was a love of sorts-their marriage lasted 48 years and brought forth 13 children-but the later half of the marriage was soured by acrimony, secrecy, and great emotional wounding. The greatest division came with the battle over the rights to Tolstoy's works. Sonya finally got sole possession, outliving Leo by nine years and plagued by the thought that she had been wrong for her genius husband. In intimate and scrupulous detail often drawn directly from Leo and Sonya's diaries, Shirer (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich) has profiled the disintegration of a marriage. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1st, 2025, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 497 pages. "The critic Adam Plunkett expertly teases out the many meanings of Frost's poems . . . Blending biography and criticism, Plunkett shows how the circumstances of Frost's peripatetic life gave rise to some of his most successful poems. As in the best critical biographies, Plunkett does not merely track down real-world inspiration for a given work. Rather, he brings together Frost's personal life, literary sources, and publication history to enrich our understanding of the poems, then uses the poems to enhance our understanding of the life. The result is a thorough, elegant, and, at times, surprising study of Frost, who emerges as a remarkably complex poet and a compelling but complicated man." -Maggie Doherty, The New Yorker. Clean copy.
Hardcover. New York, Blue Rider Press, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 336 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Black and white illustrations and pictures throughout.
Hardcover. London, Faber & Faber, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 72 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Very clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to edges. Black and white illustrations throughout by Mezzo. From 'Crossroads Blues' to 'Sweet Home Chicago', 'Hellhound on My Trail' to 'Come On In My Kitchen', Robert Johnson wrote some of the most enduring and formative songs of the original blues era, songs that would go on to help shape the birth of rock 'n' roll in the 1960s. Beloved of Clapton, Dylan and the Stones, Robert Johnson remains one of the most iconic and mythologized figures in popular music (and the first of many to die at the age of 27). Born in the in the South in Mississippi, Johnson made his way to the urban North as a traveling musician, but it was only when he returned to the South that he recorded the twenty-nine songs, in two sessions, which would create his legacy. Exploring the stories and legends that surround his life and death -- his childhood, his womanizing, his pact with the devil at the crossroads -- Mezzo and DuPont have produced a fittingly creative and beautiful depiction of this most extraordinary life.
Hardcover. NY, Viking, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 422 pages. Poets of the twentieth century Elizabeth Bishop's friend James Merrill once observed that 'Elizabeth had more talent for life--and for poetry--than anyone else I've known.' This new biography reveals just how she learned to marry her talent for life with her talent for writing in order to create a brilliant array of poems, prose, and letters--a remarkable body of work that would make her one of America's most beloved and celebrated poets. In Love Unknown, Thomas Travisano tells the story of the famous poet and traveler's life. Bishop moved through extraordinary mid-twentieth century worlds with relationships among an extensive international array of literati, visual artists, musicians, scholars, and politicians -- along with a cosmopolitan gay underground that was then nearly invisible to the dominant culture. Drawing on fresh interviews and newly discovered manuscript materials, Travisano illuminates that the 'art of losing' that Bishop celebrated with such poignant irony in her poem 'One Art' --perhaps her most famous-- was linked in equal part to an 'art of finding,' Like new.
Hardcover. NY, Random House;, 1st, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 220 pages. Kurt Vonnegut's eldest daughter, Edith, was cleaning out her mother's attic when she stumbled upon a dusty, aged box. Inside, she discovered an unexpected treasure: more than two hundred love letters written by Kurt to Jane, spanning the early years of their relationship.The letters begin in 1941, after the former schoolmates reunited at age nineteen, sparked a passionate summer romance, and promised to keep in touch when they headed off to their respective colleges. And they did, through Jane's conscientious studying and Kurt's struggle to pass chemistry. The letters continue after Kurt dropped out and enlisted in the army in 1943, while Jane in turn graduated and worked for the Office of Strategic Services in Washington, D.C. They also detail Kurt's deployment to Europe in 1944, where he was taken prisoner of war and declared missing in action, and his eventual safe return home and the couple's marriage in 1945.
Softcover. Robin May, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 378 pages. Softcover. Pages clean. Binding good. Wrapper very good. In very good condition. The magic of May's journey portrayed in these pages will answer so may of our questions about the paranormal, while assuaging many of our fears about death and that which comes after.
Hardcover. Caldwell, Idaho, The Caxton Printers, 1st, 1938, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 265 pages, hardcover with dust jacket. Scarce. Illustrated by Anton Otto Fisher. A frank and detailed description of the life of a English deep-sea fisherman. Moderate edgewear to dust jacket, chipping most pronounced along top edge. Chipping to dust jacket spine as well. Foxing to all edges. Unmarked. A tight copy.
Hardcover. Boston, New Harvest, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 174 pages. Hardcover. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Hoban has written an insightful book into what may have made Lucian Freud the great painter he came to be. From his early days in Germany with his grandfather, Sigmund Freud, to his subsequent life in London, where his family moved before the war, we see Lucian Freud gradually developing from an intense adolescent who often resorted to physical violence in conflicts with others to the powerful figure who changed the face of Realism. His many liaisons with women are described in detail: Hoban offers us a candid sketch of who the most prominent women in his life were, his problems with commitment and other moral conundrums we are forced to consider in his character, such as his questionable demand on his lovers that they use no form of birth control, resulting in at least 14 children, most out of wedlock. Along with that, Freud's gambling addiction and his love of risk are explored by Hoban in a way that allows us a glimpse into Freud's psyche that is invaluable for anyone wanting to understand in a more in depth way the factors that might have contributed to his enormous talents and output.
Hardcover. London, Constable & Company, 1st, 1962, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, Hardcover in a price-clipped dust jacket, 252 pages including index. Illustrated in b&w and color. Biography of Lucien Pissarro, artist and son of Camille, and his family. With an introduction by John Rewald. Name on inside front cover (behind flap), chunk gone from rear panel of dust jacket.otherwise clean.
Hardcover. NY, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 420 pages, b&w illustrations. Draws on hundreds of new interviews and previously unpublished letters to present a comprehensive account of the life of the Hall of Fame ballplayer whose career was cut short by the disease now named for him, in a portrait that shares background details about his rivalry with Babe Ruth, the onset of his illness, and the final years of his life. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 420 pages, b&w illustrations. Offers a fascinating and well-rounded portrait of Gehrig, from his dugout rituals and historic games to his relationships with his mother, wife, coaches, and teammates. His complex friendship with Ruth, who was the polar opposite to Gehrig in nearly every respect, is given particularly vivid attention. Take this revealing description of how the two men began a barnstorming tour together following their 1927 World Series victory: "Ruth tipped the call girls and sent them on their way. Gehrig kissed his mother goodbye." Eig also shares some previously unknown details regarding his consecutive games streak and how he dealt with ALS during the final years of his life. Rich in anecdotes and based on hundreds of interviews and 200 pages of recently discovered letters, the book effectively shows why the Iron Horse remains an American icon to this day. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Biblioasis, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 290 pages. Bruce Jay Friedman has done it all, charming the glitziest industries of American golden-age culture for more than half a century. Lucky Bruce is his long-awaited memoir, and it's everything we'd expect and more: here is Friedman at his best, waltzing from Madison Avenue to Hollywood and back again, and reilluminating with brilliant clarity the dazzle of post-war American life. Cameos by Joseph Heller, Philip Roth, Mario Puzo, Lillian Hellman, Warren Beatty, Marlene Dietrich, Brian Grazer, Candida Donadio, Crazy Joe Gallo, Joyce Carol Oates, Jack Richardson, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Kurt Vonnegut, and the irreplaceable Elaine. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, The Free Press, 2nd pr., 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 654 pages, b&w illustrations. A portrait of one of the twentieth-century's most influential philosophers draws on previously unpublished letters and writings to describe Wittgenstein's youth, education, private life, and major works. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 283 pages. Black & white drawings by Richard Amundsen. Light soil to rear of dust jacket..
Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton , 2nd pr., 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright unclipped dust jacket. Explores John Steinbeck's long apprenticeship as a writer struggling through the depths of the Great Depression, and his rise to greatness with masterpieces such as The Red Pony, Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath. His most poignant and evocative writing emerged in his sympathy for the Okies fleeing the dust storms of the Midwest, the migrant workers toiling in California's fields and the labourers on Cannery Row, reflecting a social engagement-paradoxical for all of his natural misanthropy-radically different from the writers of the so-called Lost Generation. 446 pages, remainder dot on top edge otherwise clean.
Hardcover. NY, Bloomsbury , 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, pictorial boards with wrap-around dust jacket band with title. 403 pages, color and b&w illustrations. Claude Monet's water lily paintings are among the most iconic and beloved works of art of the past century. Yet these entrancing images were created at a time of terrible private turmoil and sadness for the artist. The dramatic history behind these paintings is little known; Ross King's Mad Enchantment tells the full story for the first time and, in the process, presents a compelling and original portrait of one of our most popular and cherished artists. Clean, bright copy.
Hardcover. NY, Doubleday, 1st, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 553 pages. The compulsively readable and sometimes jaw-dropping story of the life of a notorious madam who played hostess to every gangster, politician, writer, sports star and Cafe Society swell worth knowing, and who as much as any single figure helped make the twenties roar--from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Most Famous Man in America. Simply put: Everybody came to Polly's. Pearl "Polly" Adler (1900-1962) was a diminutive dynamo whose Manhattan brothels in the Roaring Twenties became places not just for men to have the company of women but were key gathering places where the culturati and celebrity elite mingled with high society and with violent figures of the underworld--and had a good time doing it. B&w illustrations, clean copy.