Artist, Musician, & Author Biographies

ARIEL'S GIFT: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and the Story of Birthday Letters
by Erica Wagner. B&W photo section. Condition: UNREAD, but perused on shelf, I believe, 2000 Faber & Faber (UK) hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. Content: A study of Ted Hughes's poetry collection, "Birthday Letters". Divided into ten sections, the book discusses groups of poems as well as giving a biographical framework to the whole sequence. It also offers an explanation of the connections between Hughes's work and that of Sylvia Plath. This erudite critical study, together with the Unabridged Diaries of Sylvia Plath released last year, breathes new life into Plath scholarship, ironically in this case through the study of her husband's poetry, particularly Birthday Letters (published in 1998 shortly before his death), which, Wagner, literary editor of the London Times, asserts, "demonstrates the extent to which the poets influenced each other," and then goes on to offer ample evidence, grounding particular poetic images and phrases in specific events of Plath's and Hughes's lives. Hughes's love poetry in Birthday Letters overtly refers to his first meeting of Sylvia at Oxford: "Maybe I noticed you./ .../ Your exaggerated American/ Grin f or the cameras, the judges, the strangers, the frighteners." Another poem, about their honeymoon to Spain, notes that "Spain/ was the land of your dreams: the dust-red cadaver/ You dared not wake with...." To understand the complexities of Hughes and Plath's relationship, however, Wagner has had to touch upon one of the literary world's most controversial, and often ugly, disputes: to what degree if any did Hughes contribute to his wife's depression and subsequent suicide at age 30? Fortunately, Wagner is not interested in either launching crude attacks on or apologizing for Hughes. Her clear and careful scholarship allows readers to come to their own conclusions. She encourages readers to stop playing the blame game with these two gifted poets, whose work and lives were undoubtedly influenced by their marriage to each other. In Wagner's own no-nonsense phrasing, her superb study "is an attempt to open up this dialogue between two people both now dead and make [it]... more accessible to the general reader." 8 pages of photos. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 5.50 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

LOUIS ARMSTRONG: The Offstage Story of Satchmo
by Michael Cogswell. B&W, color and sepia-tone photos illustrate. Condition: Gently pre-read, IF AT ALL, 2003 Collector's Press large hard cover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. Decorated end pages. Content: This is the "official book" of the Louis Armstrong House and Archives, marking its October 15, 2003, grand opening as a national historic museum. That is to say, it is a souvenir book. But what a souvenir book! One culmination of Cogswell's 12-year labor of ordering and cataloging the great jazzman's belongings, it is loaded with some 300 previously unpublished photographs of the trumpeter and his associates; of the house, inside and out; and of letters, other writings, and the collages of photos and clippings that Armstrong created in his spare time. Cogswell presents these in chapters devoted to Armstrong's career, the house, the archives, and "Discoveries"--that is, things that record forgotten and underdocumented aspects of Armstrong's life. Sections within each chapter home in on particular topics, making for an exceptionally browsable book, for which Cogswell's plain writing is pretty much ideal. An invaluable, keenly lovable treasure-trove about a great American. [1 copy available]
$ 6.79 + $ 3.59 media shipping.

L. FRANK BAUM, Creator of Oz: A Biography
by Katharine M. Rogers. B&W reproductions of early graphics from his books. Condition: NEW 2002 St. Martin's Press hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first edition, first printing. Content: Frank Baum is recognized chiefly as the author whose characters inspired the hit movie, The Wizard of Oz, but as Rogers aptly shows in this insightful biography/analysis, Baum (the L stood for Lyman) was far more than a one-hit wonder. Industrious, determined and prolific, he turned out more than 70 books, an especially impressive achievement given the relative brevity of his career: he was 41 when his first book, Mother Goose in Prose, was published, and he died at 63 in 1919. Rogers provides a condensed but comprehensive explanation for his slow start: energetic and entrepreneurial, Baum spent the first two-thirds of his life trying to find the right outlet for his talents. He threw himself into a variety of seemingly unconnected pursuits, from theater, which remained a lifelong love, to breeding fancy poultry (he helped found the Empire State Poultry Association in 1878); he was a shopkeeper and then newspaper editor in South Dakota, where he moved his young family from 1888 to 1891. Rogers, who has edited anthologies of 18th- and 19th-century literature, devotes more than a third of her book to summarizing Baum's stories, critiquing his shortcomings as an author and praising his many successes, particularly his commitment to creating strong, independent female characters. Her analyses are enlightening and engaging-she quite possibly could spark renewed interest in his work. [1 copy available]
$ 5.50 + $ 3.29 media shipping.

SARAH BERNHARDT: Artist & Icon
by William A. Emboden. B&W and color plates. Condition: NEW 1992 Severin Wunderman Museum Publications large aoft cover, no printing given. Content: This is a biography of the great theatrical actress of the 1800s - 1900s as well a a presentation of the thousands of Bernhardt artifacts collected by Wunderman. Excellent. Questions welcome [1 copy available]
$ 6.10 + $ 3.39 media shipping.

TRUMAN CAPOTE: DEAR HEART, OLD BUDDY
by John Malcolm Brinnin. B&W photo section. . Condition: PLEASE READ / UNREAD, but not perfect, 1986 Delacorte Press hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), no printing given. Book perfect, but DJ shows shelfwear to edges. Content: Based on Brinnin's "Sextet" published in 1981. Two years after Capote's death, Brinnin expanded upon that original reminiscence to take the reader past the time of Capote's completion of "In Cold Blood" to his death in 1984. As the Author points out in his Foreword, more objective accounts of Capote's life will be published, but no one will tell the story more personally or affectionately. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 17.50 + $ 3.19 media shipping. International shipping available.

DANGEROUS WATER: A Biography of the Boy Who Became Mark Twain
by Ron Powers. Condition: NEW 2001 Da Capo Trade Paperback, first printing. Content: "The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow," opined Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain). Here, Powers (The Cruel Radiance) follows Twain's genius to its source, illuminating both the sorrow and the exhilaration of a boyhood that provided a lifetime of inspiration. The saga, framed by two anecdotes from Twain's old age, begins with the westward journeys of his grandparents and parents and the arrival of the Clemens family in Missouri just before his birth in 1835 ("I do not remember just when, for I was not then born and cared nothing for such things," remarked Twain). It ends with the death of his brother Henry in 1858. Young Sam's life was a m?lange of horrors, pleasures and difficulties. He was haunted, among other things, by a distant father who moved ever closer to bankruptcy while pursuing dreams of wealth, and by images of the self-immolation of a drunk to whom he had supplied matches. He found great solace in smoking a good cigarAhe began at age sevenAand in the tales and songs he heard around the fire in the slave quarters. Powers regularly draws convincing links between Twain's early life and events and characters in his fiction, locating Twain's greatness as a humorist in the dynamics of his family, the tragedies that surrounded him, the literary currents of the time and a lifelong love for the varieties of spoken language. At times, Powers strains for significance, for instance marking the end of Twain's boyhood four disparate times. But he demonstrates convincingly that "the sunlit parts of [Twain's] childhood cast deep shadows... and in those shadows lay the dark artifacts that would torment and compel him to his masterpieces..-- childhood cast deep shadows... and in those shadows lay the dark artifacts that would torment and compel him to his masterpieces." Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
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DEAREST DEBBIE (in Ai Lee)
by Dale Evans Rogers. Condition: Good +, 1965 Fleming Revell hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), no printing given. Both the DJ and the board edges show light shelf wear. DJ price-clipped. Blue text on off-white paper. Content: This is the story of Roy and Dale Rogers' adopted Korean daughter, In Ai Lee - or Debbie, who they adopted at age 3 and who died in a bus accident at a young age. Strength in your faith is really the message here. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 3.49 + $ 3.09 media shipping.

THE DIARY OF VASLAV NIJINSKY
edited by Romola Nijinsky. B&W photos. Condition: UNREAD, but not perfect, 1973 Univ. of California Press Trade Paperback, third printing. While the book is unread, there is a name at the top of the loose end page. Interior unmarked & perfect. Light edge wear. Content: Vaslav Nijinsky spent the final six weeks before his permanent consignment to an insane asylum as something a madman in the attic. With his family--wife, young daughters and occasionally, mother-in-law--and household staff downstairs, the legendary dancer retreated to his room in a remote Swiss villa to tangle with his burgeoning psychosis. Fearful that his wife would (as she ultimately did) commit him, and highly suspicious of the physician-cum-amateur psychiatrist who daily came by to examine him, Nijinsky perceived the diary as the only safe haven for the rambling thoughts that were overtaking him. Throughout, the anxiety and anguish are palpable, as Nijinsky writes about his disillusionment with his mentor and lover, Ballets Russes director Serge Diaghilev; his alienation from and distrust of his closest family members; and his fear of insanity and its consequential confinement. His writing becomes more obscure as the weeks progress and he examines his relationship to God, writing "I am God" at one point, and later: "God said to me, 'Go home and tell your wife that you are mad.'" As his schizophrenia evolves, the pace and style of Nijinsky's prose changes radically--toward the end he writes in abstract verse--but he remains, with a dancer's sensibility, attuned to the cadences of his environment. The noises of the household, the ringing of the phone, footsteps down the hall, smatterings of conversations overheard are all registered as a sort of accompaniment to his dance with madness and function perhaps as a final tether to reality. Nijinsky's wife stumbled upon the diary in a locked trunk some years after her husband disappeared into the abyss of madness and soon released it for publication to feed public interest in her famous mate--but not before she sanitized the manuscript to such a degree (removing references to his homosexuality, overblown ego, bizarre paranoia, and various obsessions with bodily functions and sex acts) that its essence was obscured. Now 80 years after it was written, 20 years after its renegade editor died, and six years after the copyright that Nijinsky's daughters held expired, the unexpurgated version of the diaries faithfully restores the fascinating record of a great artist's struggle for his life. [1 copy available]
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DR. SEUSS & MR. GEISEL; A Biography
by Judith and Neil Morgan. B&W photo section with Dr. SEuss drawings. Condition: UNREAD, but NOT perfect, 1999 Da Capo Trade paperback, 4th printing. Edgewear with "smudges" on fore edges and bottom edges - working on that. Content: This witty and charming biography of the highly original genius, Dr. Seuss (Ted Geisel), maintains suspense as the authors unfold the facts of his life and art. It is full of wry Seussian limericks and interesting anecdotes, among which are his failed invention of an Infantograph and the mad pranks played by Seuss on rival artists. The legions of Seuss admirers are treated to accounts of the inspiration for and the history behind each of his famous books. The authors, seasoned journalists and writers themselves, who are neighbors of Geisel, have given us the only authorized biography of this famous American. As such, it is of interest to the three generations of men and women who grew and continue to grow up reciting Dr. Seuss's rhymes. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 5.49 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

ISADORA DUNCAN: Revolutionary Dancer (American Troublemakers series)
by Larry Sandomir. James Shenton introduction. B&W era photos throughout. Condition: PLEASE READ / NEW, but not perfect, 1994 Steck-Vaughn hardcover (pictorial boards - no DJ issued), 1st printing. Problem: ding to top back spine - shelf wear. Interior perfect. Library binding. Content: biography of one of the pioneers of modern dance. Very little information is given about the society in which Duncan lived or why her behavior (fairly tame by present-day standards) was considered shocking by the Victorians and Edwardians. Grade 7+. [1copy available]
$ 8.79 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

ENCORE PROVENCE: New Adventures in the South of France - AND A Year in Provence (2 for 1)
by Peter Mayle. Condition: NEW 1999 Knopf Borzoi hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), third printing. Content: Note: This is a 2/1 special. "Provence, again?" one may think, seeing Peter Mayle's latest effort. "Has the man nothing better to do than promote a region that's already overhyped and overpriced? Can't he turn his eye to a place that needs a touristic boost, like Bulgaria?" Mayle discloses a world missed by tourists, be it the questions dry cleaners ask about wine stains or the mysterious murder of a small-town butcher given to making housewives happy with more than his displayed meat. He also incorporates guide-like tips -- listing markets, cheese makers, and the essential how-tos of perfume sniffing and olive-oil tasting. What's more, this book gives a peek into the life of a bestselling writer. The role is not always an enviable one. [1 copy available]
$ 4.49 + $ 3.29 media shipping.

ELLA FITZGERALD: A Biography of the First Lady of Jazz
by Stuart Nicholson. Two B&W photo sections. Condition: NEW 1999 Da Capo Trade Paperback, 4th printing. Tiny edge wear. Content: Ella Fitzgerald, who died in 1996, came from a poverty-stricken background. She was abandoned by her father, possibly abused by her stepfather and lived on the streets as a teenager. As a club singer she had to contend with racism, sexism and advances from predatory men. But in the 1950s, just when Billie Holiday, from a similar background, was falling toward drug addiction and a sordid death, Fitzgerald escaped the seeming inevitability of that fate. Her songbook albums relaunched her career in a new direction, and she became a beloved figure in American jazz, known for her musical precision and luminous clarity. This biography offers an assessment of the emotional strength apparent in both her life and music. Discography by Phil Schaap. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 4.49 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

HERMANN HESSE
by G. W. Field. Condition: Very good c. 1978 Hippocrene Trade Paperback, reprint. Thin binder's glue string down spine with minor edgeweaer, interior has 2 pages with notes otherwise clean & tight. Light tanning to page edges. Content: Biography of the literary great. [1 copy available]
$ 7.25 + $ 3.09 media shipping. Priority shipping available.

HILARY AND JACKIE: The true story of two sisters who shared a passion, a madness and a man (aka A Genius in the Family
by Hilary du Pre and Piers du Pre. Movie cover photo with B&W photo section. Condition: Read to page 10. Like-new 1998 Ballantine Trade Paperback, first American printing. 2 pale "spots" fore edges. Content: From the moment Jacqueline du Pré first held a cello at the age of five, it was clear she had an extraordinary gift. At sixteen, when she made her professional debut, she was hailed as one of the world's most talented and exciting musicians. But ten years later, she stopped playing virtually overnight, when multiple sclerosis removed the feeling in her hands just before a concert. It took fourteen more years for the crippling disease to take its final toll. In this uniquely revealing biography, Hilary and Piers du Pré have re-created the life they shared with their sister in astonishing personal detail, unveiling the private world behind the public face. With warmth and candor they recount Jackie's blissful love of the cello, her marriage to the conductor Daniel Barenboim, her compulsions, her suffering, and, above all, the price exacted by her talent on the whole family. For proud as they were of Jackie's enormous success, none of them was prepared for the profound impact her genius would have on each of their lives. The 1998 movie was directed by Anand Tucker and starred Emily Watson, Rachel Griffiths, James Frain, David Morrissey, Charles Dance, and Rupert Penry-Jones. [1 copy available]
$ 5.00 + $ 3.19 media shipping

THE ILLUSTRATED GEORGE HARRISON
by Geoffrey Giuliano. Color and B&W photos illustrate. Condition: Gently pre-read 1993 Chartwell large haradcover (pictorial boards) & DJ (in mylar jacket), assumed first printing. Content: Reviewer: "I thought this colorful well designed book was great! There are lots of rare pictures of George, and even more rare stories. I recommened the book to anyone who loves George Harrison of the Beatles. Besides being a great writer, Giuliano clearly loves the subject." Actually, other readers hated this book. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 7.89 + $ 3.39 media shipping.

I'M WITH THE BAND: Confessions of a Groupie
by Pamela Des Barres. Two B&W photo sections. Condition: Good+, 1988 Jove paperback, 8th printing. Two spine creases with light edgewear with rubbings along hinges. Interior clean & tight with light tanning to page edges. Content: "Irresistible sexual memoirs of Rock's Golden Age." - Rolling Stone. Fortunately, Des Barres injects humor into these accounts of degradation, which exemplify the subculture of rock music. As a California teenager during the wild 1960s, she attached herself to members of various rock bands and other celebrities. More bragging than confessional, the story explicitly details this particular groupie's sexual exploits with Mick Jagger, the late Brandon de Wilde, Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page (he liked using whips and handcuffs to enhance sex, we're told here), future Miami Vice star Don Johnson and many others. Now in her 30s, Des Barres has recovered from longtime drug abuse as has her husband, Michael, a musician. Though still "making the scene," they have s ettled down somewhat, as parents of a son. There are profoundly sad, shocking revelations here, and the reader understands why John Lennon glanced at the groupie and her adolescent female gang in 1964, "his face full of contempt and sorrow." and "Pamela Des Barres was the "Sweetheart of Rock," the reigning queen of L.A.'s wild music scene. A hopeful romantic and the ultimate star-chaser, she lived life in the fast lane. She is one of the warmest, wittiest women ever to kiss and tell--and now she tells everything! Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 7.89 + $ 3.09 media shipping. Priority & International shipping available.

WILLIAM HENRY JACKSON: Framing the Frontier
by Douglas Waitley. Color photo section plus B&W era photos and maps. Condition: NEW 1999 Mountain Press Trade Paperback, no printing given. Content: Waitley brings to life the engaging story of one of America's most famous photographers. I recounting Jackson's life and contributions, WAitley skillfully interweaves Jackson's own words from his diaries with commentary on the challenges of the westward expansion, the excitement of the discoveries made in the new American West, and the development of photography as a documentary and commercial enterprise. True adventures are the best kind, and Waitley has faithfully capture dthe spirit of Jackson's lifetime of adventues. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 4.79 + $ 3.19 media shipping. International shipping available.

JAGGER (Mick Jagger)
by Carey Schofield. B&W photo section. Condition: NEW 1985 Beaufort Books Trade Paperback, first American edition. Content: While this bio is a bit dated, it is the early life & photos (Mick on the basketball team, etc.) that make this book worth reading. It portrays Jagger not only as a rock star, but as the student at the London School of Economics, a father, and a man of wealth and taste. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 4.49 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

JANIS JOPLIN: BURIED ALIVE
by Myra Friedman. B&W photo section. Condition: Good+ - very good 1983 Bantam paperback 9th printing. The interior is perfect but for some tanning to the page edges, but the front cover has edgewear and creases at the corners. Spine crease. Content: Intense biography of one of the legendary "J's" of the 60s. Electrifying, highly acclaimed, and intensely personal, this new and updated version of Myra Friedman's classic biography of Janis Joplin teems with dramatic insights into Joplin's genius and into the chaotic times that catapulted her to fame as the legendary queen of rock. It is a stunning panorama of the turbulent decade when Joplin's was the rallying voice of a generation that lost itself in her music and found itself in her words. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 5.50 + $ 2.94 media shipping. Priority & International shipping available.

LIVES OF THE WRITERS: Comedies, Tragedies (and What the Neighbors Thought)
by Kathleen Krull. Adorable color illustrations by Kathryn Hewitt. Condition: NEW 1994 Harcourt Brace hardcover (pictorial boards - no DJ issued), 5th printing. Pale inpression (binding error) font cover hear hinge. You can't see it, but it is there. Content: Krull and Hewitt present the brief histories of 20 classic writers - warts and all. Most are novelists and poets whose names, and possibly whose works, will be familiar to the intended audience. A wide variety of cultures and a generous proportion of women are represented. Krull organizes her biographical sketches chronologically, moving from Japan (Murasaki Shikibu, author of Tale of the Genji) through the centuries with Shakespeare, Cervantes, the Brontes, Twain, Poe, Zora Neale Hurston, and ending with Isaac Bashevis Singer. The glimpses she provides are respectful of their times and influences without being dull. The dry essentials are dealt with in the headings of each chapter. The rest is the juicy stuff-what the writers ate, the pets they kept, what they wore (with a healthy interest in underwear), their writing habits, eccentricities and scandals, and what people thought of them. Brief sections entitled "Bookmarks" highlight a few of their works. A one-page glossary of literary terms, a short index, and a child-focused bibliography complete the book. Hewitt maintains a light touch in her full-page caricatures by balancing fully realized facial portraits on small bodies surrounded by representative objects. The handsomely mounted text is larded with small pictorial reminders of the content. There's enough substance here for a quick report or to enliven a longer one. Ages 8 - 12. [1 copy available]
$ 6.49 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

LUST FOR LIFE
by Irving Stone. Condition: UNREAD 1977 Pocket Books edition, 25th printing (c. 1985). Pale tanning to white cover edges & interior pages edges. Tiny edgewear. Interior clean & tight. Content: This is a biographical novel of the Dutch painter, Vincent Van Gogh and is based primarily on Van Gogh's three volumes of letters to his brother, Theo. Van Gogh was a violent, clumsy and passionate man who was driven to the extremity of exhaustion by his fervor to get life -- the essence of it -- into paint. Irving Stone treats the artist with great compassion and gives us a portrait that is sympathetic but fair. The 1956 movie was directed by the great Vincente Minnelli (yup, Liza's dad) and starred Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, James Donald, Pamela Brown, Everett Sloane, and Marion Ross (in a small role). Rent or buy, but don't miss this movie! [1 copy available]
$ 7.50 + $ 2.94 media shipping.

THE MAKING OF MARK TWAIN: A Biography
by John Lauber. B&W photo section. Condition: UNREAD 1988 Noonday Press Trade Paperback, first printing. Content: This fond but clear-eyed life of Samuel Langhorne Clemens will charm as well as inform scholars and general readers. Lauber describes the childhood of "Little Sam," obstreperous in spite of his frailty, and the upward-striving years that created Mark Twain, world-famous satirist and classic author. Born in 1835 in a Missouri town, one of many places where his dreamy father failed to support his family, Twain went out into the world early, looking for work. His roistering days are vividly evoked, covering the years as he progressed from a journeyman printer, a river-boat pilot, a miner, reporter in the West, etc. The account ends with Twain's marriage in 1870 to Olivia Langdon (his beloved "Livy"), at home in Hartford where "the apprenticeships had ended; the time of accomplishment was at hand." There he set to work on Tom Sawyer, Old Times on the Mississippi, and Huckleberry Finn, his enduring legacy. [1 copy available]
$ 5.89 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

MARK AND LIVY: The Love Story of Mark Twain and the Woman Who (Almost) Tamed Him
by Resa Willis. B&W photo section. Condition: NEW 2000 TV Books Trade Paperback, no printing given. Content: Olivia Langston (1845-1904) married Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) in 1870 and remained his wife for 34 years. In line with the conventions of the times, she saw herself as a wife, mother and "tamer" of iconoclastic Twain. However as Willis, literature professor at Drury College in Missouri, points out in this carefully researched, readable biography, Langston was also his valued critic and editor. In humorous anecdotes Twain portrayed "Livy" as a shrew--but the relationship between the mild-mannered, self-effacing woman and the cantankerous literary genius was apparently one of deep commitment and love. Their affection for one another, claims Willis, saw them through the rise and fall of their financial fortunes, the death of their daughter and Livy's many illnesses. The author's access to letters and journals gives insight into both husband and wife, as well as providing a portrait of American domestic life in the late 1800s. This book was the basis for the Masterpiece Theatre program. [1 copy available]
$ 4.49 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

MEMOIRS
by Tennessee Williams. B&W photo section. Condition: UNREAD, but not perfect, 1976 Bantam Paperback, first printing. Name marked out inside front cover, tiny edge wear, moderate taning to page edges. Very readable. Content: When this book was first published in 1975, it created quite a bit of turbulence in the media—though long self-identified as a gay man, Williams' candor about his love life, sexual encounters, and drug use was found shocking in and of itself, and such revelations by America's greatest living playwright were called "a raw display of private life" by The New York Times Book Review. As it turns out, thirty years later, Williams' look back at his life is not quite so scandalous as it once seemed; he recalls his childhood in Mississippi and St. Louis, his prolonged struggle as a "starving artist," the "overnight" success of The Glass Menagerie in 1945, the death of his long-time companion Frank Merlo in 1962, and his confinement to a psychiatric ward in 1969 and subsequent recovery from alcohol and drug addiction, all with the same directness, compassion, and insight that epitomize his plays. And, of course, Memoirs is filled with Williams' amazing friends from the worlds of stage, screen, and literature as he—often hilariously, sometimes fondly, sometimes not—remembers them: Laurette Taylor, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Elia Kazan, Marlon Brando, Vivian Leigh, Carson McCullers, Anna Magnani, Greta Garbo, Elizabeth Taylor, and Tallulah Bankhead to name a few. [1 copy available]
$ 1.49 + $ 2.94 media shipping.

ARTHUR MILLER: His Life and Work
by Martin Gottfried. Two B&W photo sections. Condition: NEW 2003 Da Capo Press hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. 484 pages. Content: Former New York Post drama critic Gottfried shares an illuminating and profound picture of playwright Miller. Outraged at the shameful critical disrespect heaped in recent years on the author of Death of a Salesman and All My Sons, Gottfried carefully analyzes all Miller's plays to rebut the adverse comments. An indifferent student, son of a father barely literate yet successful as a women's clothing manufacturer, Miller (b. 1915) blossomed in college and produced promising works: Final Curtain, Honors at Dawn and They Too Arise. The Jewish Miller married Catholic Mary Grace Slattery, the daughter of anti-Semitic parents, and persevered despite the failure of his first production, The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944). After this rejection, Miller consciously aimed to create a commercial hit, accomplished with All My Sons. Gottfried leads readers through the playwright's meticulous work regimen-his attention to potential titles, dialogue and scene descriptions, pointing out that it took five years, six drafts and 700 pages before Miller was satisfied with his first hit. Material about Marilyn Monroe is incorporated seamlessly throughout the text, and Gottfried refuses to unbalance his overall literary study with sensationalism. He compellingly presents the Miller/Elia Kazan artistic collaborations and doesn't avoid unflattering details (e.g., his subject's tendency toward pomposity and his tight-fisted financial attitude) but also expresses admiration for Miller's willingness to offer informer Lee J. Cobb a starring role in A View from the Bridge. (Miller discussed his plays with Gottfried, but not his life.) Only Inge Morath, Miller's third wife, remains shadowy. Fortunately, personal stories are refreshingly secondary in one of the rare books that makes the playwriting process comprehensible and consistently involving. [1 copy available]
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MARGARET MITCHELL OF ATLANTA
by Finis Farr. B&W photo section. Condition: Good+, 1974 Avon paperback, first printing. Hinge crease with binder's glue strings down wpine, tiny edgewear. Interior is clean with moderate tanning to page edges. Content: The incredible story of a remarkable woman who, for her own amusement, wrote what became a best-selling novel - and one of the greatest motion pictures of all time. The movie, of course, was the great Gone With the Wind which starred Vivian Leigh, Clark Gable, and Leslie Howard. [1 copy available]
$ 3.49 + $ 2.94 media shipping.

THE MONSTERS: Mary Shelley & The Curse Of Frankenstein
by Dorothy & Thomas Hoobler. B&W photo section. Condition: NEW 2005 Little Brown hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. Content: It's the most famous "dark and stormy night" in literary history. Every English major knows the story of the June 17, 1816, house party at the Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva, where five young English people playfully vied with one another to tell a ghost story. The soap-operatic cast of characters is irresistible. The charismatic leader of the group (and also the initiator of the contest) was Lord Byron, the foremost celebrity of the age, a bestselling poet, talented, handsome, rich, witty, titled, pan-sexually promiscuous and hounded out of England two months earlier for scandals mainly centered on his relationship with his half-sister. Byron was 28, considerably the senior in this crowd, and the luxurious Diodati was his rental; he had brought with him as paid companion a young doctor (Byron's erratic crash dieting sometimes endangered his health), John William Polidori, 21, who was also an aspiring litterateur. The third man of the group, Percy Bysshe Shelley, 23, was a decidedly radical (though always emotional) thinker who had recently begun to publish his own poetry; Byron had been unusually impressed by it, and, upon their meeting at a nearby hotel three weeks earlier, by Shelley too. And then there were the teenagers. Mary Godwin (later Shelley) was the daughter of the famous feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, who died soon after her birth, and the freethinking William Godwin (here presented as an inveterate sponger). Mary had eloped two years earlier, at 16, with the married Shelley, and oddly had taken along her 16-year-old stepsister Claire Claremont (daughter of Godwin's second wife) on the "honeymoon." During their travels in tandem, Claire had quite probably slept with Shelley too, but she had developed an obsessive crush on the rock-star-famous Byron (who was also married) and pursued him recklessly. Women often enough threw themselves at Byron, but Claire's connection with Shelley intrigued him enough to set up a rendezvous -- and then, as he said later, "If a girl of eighteen comes prancing to you at all hours, there is but one way." By June, at the Diodati, she was secretly pregnant with his child. Only two members of this entangled party completed the assignment, but they came through so spectacularly that their "monsters" have become essential to modern popular culture: Mary Shelley's nameless creature, created by Dr. Victor Frankenstein, and John Polidori's vampire. Hoobler's otherwise well-researched, fair-minded roundup of the group is based on the rather contrived conceit that the members of Byron's house party psychologically paralleled the imagined monstrousness of their creations. Mary Shelley, in particular, gets a labored analysis as both creator and created, the doctor and the monster, fashioned in bits and pieces by her father, by the memory of her famous mother and by Shelley. With the vampire, the Hooblers are on firmer ground. Gothic scholars and serious horror fans know that the modern concept of the arrogant, elegant, moody, aristocratic, malicious, sexual predator who has come to seem the one true vampire was in fact invented by Polidori in The Vampyre, published in 1819, with its antihero modeled so obviously on Lord Byron as to invite a lawsuit. Folktales about vampires -- crude animalistic blood-suckers, not so different from werewolves -- had been around for centuries, but Polidori, whose talent Byron had cruelly derided, changed this image completely, delivering a sharp, lurid social caricature of his tormentor. Lest anyone miss the point, his vampire was called Lord Ruthven -- the name that Lady Caroline Lamb, Byron's scorned lover, had given to her own caricature of him in her bestseller about their steamy affair. To further complicate matters, Polidori's vampire tale was based on a fragment that Byron had scribbled out as his contest entry, and many people thought he had written Polidori's novel. In any case, all the famous vampires that followed draw their lineage from Polidori's portrait of Byron. As for Frankenstein, his curse is invoked as members of the party and their loved ones died. Claire's child by Byron and all but one of Mary's children by Shelley died early. Mary's sister and Shelley's first wife were suicides in their twenties, as may have been Polidori, who was dead at 25. Shelley drowned at 29, leaving Mary a 24-year-old widow. Byron died of a fever in Missolonghi, Greece, at 36. The women lived on, but their lives seemed sadly diminished. Endless numbers of books have been written about these people, even the comparatively unknown Claire. But the Hooblers, long-time co-authors who once won an Edgar Award, provide a good brisk overview for readers attracted to real-life Regency romance at its most colorful. Some may remember the movies about that evening -- Ken Russell's "Gothic" (1986) or Ivan Passer's "Haunted Summer" (1988) -- and want to know more. This book will fill them in nicely. [1 copy available]
$ 6.29 + $ 3.29 media shipping.

MUSIC IS MY MISTRESS
by Duke Ellington. B&W era photos througout. Condition: UNREAD 2000 Da Capo Press Trade Paperback, 5th printing. Content: ”Music is my mistress, and she plays second fiddle to no one.” This is the story of Duke Ellington—the story of Jazz itself. Told in his own way, in his own words, a symphony written by the King of Jazz. His story spans and defines a half-century of modern music.This man who created over 1500 compositions was as much at home in Harlem’s Cotton Club in the ‘20s as he was at a White House birthday celebration in his honor in the ‘60s. For Duke knew everyone and savored them all. Passionate about his music and the people who made music, he counted as his friends hundreds of the musicians who changed the face of music throughout the world: Bechet, Basie, Armstrong, Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, Sinatra, to name a few of them. Here are 100 photographs to give us an intimate view of Duke’s world—his family, his friends, his associates.What emerges most strongly in his commitment to music, the mistress for whom he saves the fullest intensity of his passion. ”Lovers have come and gone, but only my mistress stays,” he says. He composed not only songs that all the world has sung, but also suites, sacred works, music for stage and screen and symphonies. This rich book, the embodiment of the life and works of the Duke, is replete with appendices listing singers, arrangers, lyricists and the symphony orchestras with whom the Duke played. There is a book to own and cherish by all who love Jazz and the contributions made to it by the Duke. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 20.29 + $ 3.19 media shipping. International shipping available.

NICKEL DREAMS: My Life
by Tanya Tucker with Patsi Bale Cox. B&W and color photo section. Condition: UNREAD 1998 Hyperion hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first edition. DJ shows light shelf wear. Content: Embarking upon her singing career at the tender age of 11, Tanya Tucker grew up fast and hard and wild. She seemed destined for either the highest fame or the worst destruction--maybe even both. From the big time to rock bottom and back again, her life reads like a blueprint for one of the melancholy songs that made her a star in country music, and her revealing memoir, Nickel Dreams: My Life, leaves out little of the nitty-gritty. With the aid of author and friend Patsi Bale Cox, Tucker writes honestly about her many exploits that became tabloid fodder--a fiery public affair with Glen Campbell and a long battle with alcoholism among them--without glossing over them or apologizing. There are plenty of anecdotes and revelations about her music as well, plus a peek at the backrooms of the music business and the shady dealings that occur there. Close attention is paid to her childhood and the overbearing presence of a father/manager who wanted his daughter to be a grown woman and a little girl at the same time. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 3.29 + $ 3.29 media shipping.

NO INTERMISSIONS: The Llife of Agnes De Mille
by Carol Easton. B&W photos. Condition: UNREAD 2000 Da Capo Press large Trade Paperback, first printing. Tiny edge wear. Content: "Agnes is a very demanding person, she eats up the air," said a friend of choreographer, writer and cultural whirlwind Agnes de Mille. This biography is equally daunting. Easton, biographer of Sam Goldwyn, Jacqueline du Pre and Stan Keaton, has evaluated almost every dance movement, artistic exchange and tantrum of de Mille's 88 years. But far from being irksome, the detailed chronology gathers strength as its subject careens from wild success (Oklahoma and Rodeo) to chaotic failure (Sebastian lasted one night, and Come Summer closed after seven performances). Along the way, Easton doesn't neglect de Mille's equally unpredictable emotional life. Daughter of playwright William de Mille, niece of Hollywood's larger-than-life Cecil B. de Mille, she had a torturous relationship with her mother, Anna, that dominated her early career. Later, her 45-year marriage to Walter Prude, an executive of the Sol Hurok Agency, held together despite internal competition and marked divergence of personalities. The account of their last years together is deeply moving. Nor does Easton forget de Mille's almost accidental writing career. Her Dance to the Piper was a 1952 bestseller, and throughout her career, she always had a literary project under way. Her major life of Martha Graham was published in 1991, only two years before her death. This skillful portrait assumes a deep interest in the world of dance and musical theater. [1copy available]
$ 3.79 + $ 3.29 media shipping.

GEORGIA O'KEEFFE: A Life
by Roxana Robinson. Two B&W photo sections. Condition: UNREAD 1990 HarperPerennial large soft cover, first printing. Light tanning to page edges. Tiny edge wear. Content: This biography, the first to draw on sources unavailable during O'Keeffe's lifetime--and the first to be granted her family's cooperation--offers a persuasive feminist analysis of the life and work of an iconic figure in American art. "A resourceful, imaginatively rendered portrait of a dauntingly difficult subject." [1 copy available]
$ 3.49 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

THE OAK RIDGE BOYS: Our Story
by The Oak Ridge Boys with Ellis Widner and Walter Carter. Two B&W photo sections. Condition: Gently pre-read 1987 Contemporary Books (Chicago) hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), no edition given, but assume it's a first. Problem: the DJ has serious edgewear bottom edge and is price-clipped. Content: The Oak Ridge Boys are one of the most successful groups in country music today. Their roots are in gospel music, however, and the authors interviewed most of the singers who have performed with the group since its inception in the mid-1940s to compile this history. Indeed, there were 35 other Oak Ridge quartet members prior to the famous foursome who have made up the group since 1973. Duane Allen, William Lee Golden, Richard Sterban, and Joe Bonsall are the ones who took the group to its greatest fame in gospel music and then made the controversial transition to country and popular music with such hits as "Y'all Come Back Saloon" and "Elvira." Separate chapters profiling these four stars will appeal to the ORB's many fans. [1 copy available]
$ 7.50 + $ 3.29 media shipping.

OPIUM: The Diary of His Cure
by Jean Cocteau. 28 B&W drawings by the Author. Condition: NEW 2001 Peter Owen (London) Trade Paperback, 4th impression. Content: At one traumatic stage in his life, Cocteau became addicted to opium. Here he describes not only his extraordinary experiences when taking the drug, but also his sufferings while being treated for opium poisoning. Cocteau also reminisces about some of his closest friends, including Nijinsky and Proust, and provides revealing insights into his own life and the creation of some of his masterpieces. Opium remains a record of the liveliest impromptu mind of modern France. [1 copy available]
$ 6.00 + $ 3.09 media shipping.

THE ORIGINAL JELLY ROLL BLUES: The Story of Ferdinand LaMothe AKA Jelly Roll Morton, The Originator of Jazz, Stomps and Blues
by William J. Schafer. Preface by Howard Mandel. B&W era photos illustrte. Condition: NEW 2008 Flame Tree Trade Paperback, first printing. Tiny edge wear. Content: The self-styled 'Originator of Jazz', Ferdinand 'Jelly Roll' Morton was a virtuoso pianist, composer and band leader. His many famous songs include 'Wolverine Blues', 'Shake It' and the virtual anthem of the Swing Era, 'King Porter Stomp'. A man of many parts, he was a visionary artist - whose music announced an era of vibrancy and sweeping societal change - and also a conflicted husband and lover, a gambler, a dandy and much more. A must for any Jelly Roll or Jazz enthusiast. [2 copies available]
$ 9.29 + $ 3.19 media shipping. International shipping available.

THE PAUL SIMON COMPANION: Four Decades of Commentary
by Stacey Luftig. Condition: UNREAD 1998 Simon & Schuster Trade Paperback, first printing. Tiny edge wear bottom front cover. Content: Among the most popular and gifted of current singer-songwriters, Paul Simon stands out for the diversity of his talent and of his music. In the tradition of the Companion Series titles that have preceeded it, this book collects interviews, reviews, articles, and essays on the artist and his music. The result is a biography in documents that chronicles Simons arrival on the music scene as one half of the Simon and Garfunkle duo, through his phenomenal success as a solo performer, and up to his modern experimentation with world music, including his first Broadway musical, The Cape Man; continuing interest in Simon's music in Adult-Contemporary Radio; one of the most successful songwriters of our time. Luftig is a New York based writer. Her lyrics have been performed both off and on Broadway. [1 copy available]
$ 3.50 + $ 3.19 media shipping. Priority shipping available.

DAMON RUNYON: A Life
by Jimmy Breslin. Condition: UNREAD 1991 Ticknor & Fields hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. Problem: appears it was going to be shelved in a library (remnants of glue marks loose end page and cover flaps, but was never shelved. NO library markings. Content: Immortalizes Damon Runyon (Guys & Dolls) in a biography of the Roaring Twenties journalist who covered the Mexican Revolution, World War I, the Lindbergh kidnapping, sports and theater. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 3.49 + $ 3.39 media shipping.

THE SAGEBRUSH BOHEMIAN: Mark Twain in California (Samuel Clemens's Turbulent Years on the Barbary Coast)
by Nigey Lennon. B&W era photos illustrate. Condition: UNREAD 1993 Paragon House Trade Paperback, first PB edition, first printing. Problem: slight "lift" to both front & back cover fore edges. Why? probably flimsy cover material. Interior perfect. Content: This biography chronicles a period of Train's life - his years in the Western territories (1861 - 1869) - that previous biographiers have virtually ignored, yet which proved to be not only a time of hilarioiuis, errant misadventure but also the most formative and influential years in his life as a writer. [1 copy available]
$ 5.25 + 3.19 media shipping.

THE SEARCH FOR A SOUL: Taylor Caldwell's Psychic Lives
by Jess Stern. Condition: Gently pre-read 1973 Doubleday Book Club Edition, hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket). Taning to DJ white cover edges and spine and interior page edges. Content: From the DJ: One of Jess Stearn's most dramatic and provocative explorations of the hidden dimensions of man's mind, this book delves into the psychic lives of best-selling novelist Taylor Caldwell. A skeptic about reincarnation, Miss Caldwell agreed to undergo hypnosis "in the interests of setting the theory of reincarnation to rest." Yet once in a trance, she lapsed into memories of other lives and other places - lives which make fascinating narratives in their own right, places that provide the background for many of her novels, memories that suggest a wealth of experience of which she has no conscious memory or knowledge. Interesting reading! Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 9.29 + $ 3.19 media shipping. Priority & International shipping available.

SOMEBODY ELSE: Arthur Rimbaud in Africa, 1880 - 91
by Charles Nicholl. 2 B&W photo sections. Condition: UNREAD 1998 Vinttage Trade Paperback, first printing. Light, thin binder's glue string down spine. Interior perfect. Content: Reviewer: "This book will not definitively answer the question that so many lovers of Rimbaud ask. To wit, "Why did he stop writing?" But the book is a well-researched and well-written account of Rimmbaud as "un autre," somebody else than a poet. But it's all so grindingly depressing. Yes, Rimbaud had incredible endurance and will and courage. But he had no business acumen as the accounts of his many endeavors in the world of commerce amply illustrate. The book is essentially a tale of his slow degeneration in body, if not spirit. I used to have a friend who loved Rimbaud more than I do who would call me in the middle of the night drunkenly, tearfully asking me why he quit. Well, there was nothing I could say at 3 A. M. that he would remember the next morning. But what I feel is that the answer lies in Rimbaud's most famous poem, "Le Bateau Ivre." At the end of the poem, he says that, after all the exhilarating and mystical insights, after all the rapturous visions amidst the mad seastorms, there is nothing he would like better now then to return to being a litle boat being pushed across a placid pond by a little boy. Rimbaud had been through more hell in his life by the end of his teens than would fit in the lives of many a tortured soul. It's really not so remarkable when you consider it that, his poetry unrecognized, his soul tortured by the relationship with Verlaine and the other atrocities and privations he endured that the young man would flee the literary world that had given him nothing but anguish in the end. Unfortunately, the world to which he fled offered little in the way of compensation, as this book sadly chronicles. I recommend this book to those who, like myself, had no clear idea of exactly what Rimbaud DID after he stopped writing besides vague ideas of his being a gun-runner, slave-trader and amputee (This book, by the way, casts serious doubts over whether he was ever either of the former two, except perhaps when forced to do so by bad luck and necessity). So, all in all, a sad but informative work.-I still think the last lines of "Le Bateau Ivre" are the key to why he stopped writing. But, as is commmonplace, you can't go home again, as those last lines express a yearning for. This book is an excellent chronicle of the alternative Rimbaud was forced to accept." Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 4.29 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

TRUE: The Autobiography of Martin Kemp
by Martin Kemp. Color photo sections. Condition: Very good 2000 Orion (London) hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket) - appears to be a first printing. Problem: bookstore browsing has caused some wear at the photo sections - I guess people just wanted a really good look - but the rest of the book is tight. This is the best description I can give you. Content: Writing his own story Martin Kemp talks frankly about his upbringing in working-class Islington, stardom and success with Spandau Ballet and the break up of the band. He writes openly about his film career, the huge success of The Krays, his tremendous fight against brain cancer and on to today with fame again in EastEnders. This is a stunningly written account of a fascinating life written with candour and wit. [1 copy available]
$ 9.59 + $ 3.29 media shipping.

TWILIGHT OF THE WAGNERS: The Unveiling of a Family's Legacy
by Gottfried Wagner. B&W photo section. Condition: NEW 2000 Picador Books Trade Paperback, first printing. Tiny edgewear at top cover corners. Content: Wagner chronicles his family's itinerary with National Socialism, from his great-grandfather's anti-Semitic pamphlets to his father's, uncle's and grandparents' close relationship with Adolf Hitler. The discovery of his family's past led him on a crusade to examine the hatred and racism he knew growing up in Bayreuth. Some reviewers have complained that this is a self-serving family biography, but why not? This is a man who is despised simply because of his name and his family's association with Hiltler. He wants us to know he is not following in the footsteps of his ancestors - and this is a good thing. [1 copy available]
$ 7.59 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

VINCENT VAN GOGH: Portrait of an Artist
by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan. B&W era photos & maps, with beautiful color photo section of van Gogh's art. Condition: NEW 2001 Delacorte hardcover (pictorial boards) & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. Content: This compelling book begins with van Gogh's boyhood and traces the various career paths (art dealer, missionary) he pursued before dedicating himself to painting. The authors draw on the artist's voluminous correspondence with his brother Theo to elicit his thoughts and feelings, providing glimpses inside the head of this most unusual person. The use of his own phrases enlivens the text: "The more I am spent, ill, a broken pitcher, the more I become an artist, creator-." His passionate dedication to his work-living on nothing but coffee and bread for days, sacrificing his physical and mental health for the sake of art-was extraordinary. Largely unappreciated in his own lifetime, he was certain of the value and importance of his work, yet still a bit apprehensive of even the slight bit of success that came near the end of his life. The infamous incident with the ear is included as part of an overall portrait, and varying theories as to his so-called madness (a rare form of epilepsy, psychological traumas from childhood) are presented. In addition to a few black-and-white family photographs, the volume has an eight-page insert of fine-quality, full-color reproductions of the artist's works. This outstanding, well-researched biography is fascinating reading. Grades 5 and up. Perfect for a Jr. High School Library or homeschooling. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 13.50 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

VIRGINIA WOOLF: A BIOGRAPHY
by Quentin Bell. B&W photo section. Condition: UNREAD 1992 Quality Paperback Trade Paperback, no printing given. Interior perfect. Pale shelf wear diagonal crease bottom front cover corner. Content: The first full-scale biography of the eminent British writer, written by her nephew, who includes the good and the family's "dirty linen." [2 copies available]
$ 6.59 + $ 3.39 media shipping.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: A Revolutionary Life
by Janet Todd. B&W photo section. Condition: NEW 2000 Columbia University Press large hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), assumed first printing. Content: Mary Wollstonecraft may be called "the mother of feminism," but motherhood in all its various aspects represented little but trouble to her. All her life, according to Todd, she resented her own mother because she had breast-fed only her brother, leaving Mary to the wet nurse, and because she detested the model of long-suffering patience in the face of paternal tyranny that was her mother's accommodation to marriage. Later, Mary would intervene energetically following the birth of her sister's child, encouraging Eliza to run away from husband and baby to pursue an independent female existence, although Eliza proved to be woefully inadequate at it. Mary's own first-born was the result of a passionate and illicit affair with an American, Gilbert Imlay, who dumped her when the baby was less than a year old. Finally, and tragically, Mary herself died at 38, after giving birth to a second daughter, another Mary, who would grow up to write that classic of grotesque creation, Frankenstein. Despite, or perhaps because of, the burden of her gender, and despite her poverty, frequent depressions and occasional suicidal moments, Wollstonecraft's achievement was astounding: several novels; many essays, reviews and books of advice; and, notably, The Vindication of the Rights of Women, a fundamental feminist document. By Todd's account, Wollstonecraft could be prickly, sometimes needy, often arrogant and wrong-headed. Todd brings her back to life in all her splendid contradictions, without condescension, idealization or, happily, without recourse to intrusive psychologizing. [1 copy available]
$ 15.49 + $ 3.49 media shipping.