Biography / Authors

New York, NY, U.S.A.: Viking Penguin, 1991. First Edition. Hard Cover. Fine/Near Fine. This, the writer's second book about Sylvia Plath, is a well- written, well-researched and fascinating biography of the poetess. Alexander resists the temptation of turning Plath's life into melodrama, instead capturing what it is like to be Sylvia Plath. But, some parts of her life were melodrama, which is included. The biography is 364 pages, which includes 16 pages of photographs. An acknowledgment, endnotes, and index bring the page count to 402. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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New York, New York, U.S.A.: Spark Pub Group, 2003. First Edition. Hard Cover. New/No Jacket. This book features full-length coverage of The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. This lively guide explores the life of J.R.R. Tolkien and the historial and literary movements that influenced him. It provides an intimate look at Tolkien, from his love of pipe-smoking, to his distinguished academic career, to his experiences in combat. With detailed analysis of his astonishing novels, it explains why he provoked such mixed reactions from distinguished readers, one of whom called The Lord of the Rings "inflated, over-written, tendentious, and moralistic in the extreme," and one of whom likened him to Shakespeare. This guide shows why Tolkien, one of literature's most influential and controversial fantasy writers, inspires such passion in his readers. 207 pages, including suggestions for further reading and an index. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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Durham, North Carolina, U.S.A.: Duke Univ Pr, 2005. Soft Cover. New/No Jacket. Photographs and Drawings. First edition? Imagine scholar Matt Cohen's surprise when, on a visit to his grandmother's Nebraska home, he discovered a collection of hundreds of letters, photographs, telegrams, postcards, and drawings saved by his great-grandfather Herbert T. Weston. They document a nearly fifty-year friendship between Weston and one of America's most popular authors, Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs. Since Weston kept carbon copies of his own letters, the material comprises a record of a lilfelong friendship that had begun in the 1890s, when the two men met in military school. In these letters, Burroughs and Weston discuss their experiences of family, work, war, disease and health, sports, and new technology over a time period spanning two World Wars, the Great Depression, and wide political change. The correspondence trace a fascinatingly interwoven emotional and business relationship that evolved as the two men and their wives engaged in joint capital ventures, traveled, and navigated the difficult waters of child-rearing, divorce, and aging. This volume includes images never before published, and a critical introduction. 310 pages including notes and index. At the bottom right corner the pages have some discoloration, as though the edge was sticking out on something dusty. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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Boston, MA: Atlantic-Little, Brown, 1965. Book Club (BCE/BOMC). Hard Cover. Near Fine/Very Good. The first biography of the life of Dylan Thomas. 9 pages of photographs. The binding has shelfwear on the bottom spine.The dust jacket has a tear at the top in the fold about 1" long. All is tight, no other marks or tears noted. 353 pages, not including 3 appendices, and an index. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Running Pr Book Pub, 2002. 2nd Printing. Soft Cover. New/No Jacket. NEW - John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) author of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, is one of the twentieth century's most beloved and enigmatic writers. His highly unusual, imaginative works have sold millions of copies and delighted readers of all ages. And yet, surprisingly little is known about the personal life of the creator of Middle Earth. This man, who was embarrassed by success, lived most of his life as an Oxford scholar in the surrounds of a cloistered academic community. As a child in South Africa, Tolkien was kidnapped by a native and taken into the bush. As a youngster in the industrial city of Birmingham, England, Tolkien was raised by a Catholic priest. As a young adult, Tolkien lived through the bloody horror of the trenches of WW I. How these experiences shaped his imagination is just one of the areas that Daniel Grotta tries to uncover. 197 pages including an index and an epilogue, which is fascinating. The subject is The Silmarillion, which was published posthumously in 1977, after his son, Christopher, worked on it for years. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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New York, New York, U.S.A.: SchirmerTrade Books, 2002. No Edition. Soft Cover. As New/No Jacket. Photographs. The definitive and authorized biography of one of the greatest literary humorists of all time, first published in 1974, is now printed in a revised, updated edition. Lavishly illustrated, this biography is the first book to trace Wodehouse's career from his first magazine contribution in 1901 through the show-business years to his one hundred books that have given so much pleasure to readers for so many years. The author is a professor of Fine Arts at C. W. Post College in Long Island, New York. 298 pages, included is a Bibliography of Published Volumes, Bibliography of Published Short Stories, Bibliography of Published Plays, and a Bibliography of Published Musicals and Song Lyrics. There is also a general bibliography and an index. 32 glossy pages of photographs, many of the covers of his original works. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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Washington, D.C., U.S.A.: Counterpoint, 2002. First Trade Paperback Edition. Soft Cover. New/No Jacket. Photographs. Doris Lessing wrote "I am impressed by this biography. . . . Reading it reminded me what an extraordinary woman she is, overcoming such obstacles, and making fresh and good use of them in her work." Insightful, sometimes shocking and always unforgettable, Wrestling with the Angel is a remarkable account of a writer who has been pushed to the limit by life and has pushed back, using the powers of her imagination to create extraordinary work. Janet Frame is New Zealand's most celebrated and least public author. She has published some two doxen works, been shortlisted for the Nobel Prize, and was the subject of Jane Campion's award-winning film, Angel at My Table. Relying on previously unexamined documents, including Frame's diaries and health records, King reveals the formative episodes of her life. 583 pages, including photographs, bibliography, notes, and index. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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London: Faber and Faber, Ltd., 2002. First Edition. Hard Cover. New/New. Photographs. NEW - Using the techniques of fiction and memoir, as well as being a thorough and definitive scholarly investigation, this delirious kaleidoscope of a book is the culmination of twenty years' work on Anthony Burgess (1917-1993), the author who remains best know for A Clockwork Orange, the source of Stanley Kubrick's classic film. Burgess, Roger Lewis argues, was the writer as faker and prankster who lived, like an actor, by deception and illusion. Tracking his quarry from Manchester to Malaya to Malta to Monte Carlo, Lewis assesses Burgess' struggles and grudges and uncovers the webs of truth and illusion. Outrageously funny, honest and touching, this volume explores the divisions that characterized its subject and conjures a cast of drunks, nymphomaniacs, egotists, journalists and famous twentieth-century authors. Interestingly, there is a correction and apology to Mrs. Diana Gillon which appears as a slip in the front of the book. Speculation went to far. . . . 434 pages including an extensive index and 8 pagesof photos and drawings. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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New York: St Martins Press, 1997. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good. Photographs. This is the first time Jules Verne has been the subject of a biography. Drawing on previously unpublished letters and papers, Herbert R. Lottman reveals Jules Verne, the pioneer of the science fiction genre and the uncannily accurate forecaster of twentieth-century invention, in an entirely new light. In this groundbreaking biography, Lottman explores the dark, private side of the visionary writer. The binding is ivory and black; the top corners are turned in and there is a discolored bump to the front edge. The bottom edges have minor shelf wear. The jacket is bent on the top corners and has minor wear at the spine top and bottom. 366 pages including notes and an index. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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New York, New York, U.S.A.: Picador USA, 1998. First Edition. Hard Cover. Near Fine/Near Fine. Beyond the story of Joyce Maynard's relationship with J. D. Salinger and his influence on her writing, this is the story of the daughter of brilliant and complicated parents - an adoring alcoholic artist for a father and a dazzling, funny, and wildly frustrated mother, driven to see her daughters achieve what had never been possible for herself. Joyce Maynard grew up with pen in hand, writing and publishing stories before she reached her teens. In this book, Maynard made the decision to break her 25-year silence about what had taken place with Salinger. 347 pages with photo endpapers. Bottom right corner is slightly worn, jacket has light shelf wear. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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New Haven, CT: Yale Univ Press, 2002. No Edition. Hard Cover. New/New. Carroll, Lewis. Lewis Carroll was the pen name of the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and other beloved children's books. But before achieving fame as an author, Dodgson was a prolific and sophisticated photographer, acutely engaged in the art world of Victorian England. This beautifully illustrated book is the first to examine Dodgson's photographs not as a sideline of a celebrated writer, but as the creations of a serious photographic artist - and to demonstrate their importance to the history of photography. 172 pages including a bibliography and catalogue of the show. The cloth binding is in burgundy. 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall. more information

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1935. Hard Cover. Near Fine/No Jacket. Photographs. The way men laugh and the things they laugh at reflect their tastes, thoughts, and sympathies. . . . Society offers its pulse in the nature of its laughter." The career of Will Rogers is the finest illustration you could find of these observations. If we hadn't had him during the last ten years, if we hadn't appreciated him and had the sense to laugh with him and at ourselves, we should have been a sad people. He first burgeoned out as the Smiling Prophet of America in the era of the Great Insanity, which culminated in the cataclysm of November, 1929. Rogers poured out a steady stream of sparkling common sense that helped us retain some sort of perspective. The only pose in Will Rogers was the pretense that he was an ignorant and illiterate fellow. Though he made a bluff at concealing it, his writings from time to time betrayed an exceedingly wide knowledge. The system behind his humor was an old one. It can be described in one word - Truth. That, in the last analysis, is what Will Rogers gave us. - Lowell Thomas, in Appreciation. 288 pages with photographs and illustrations. Light bends on spine ends. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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New York, New York, U.S.A.: Minotaur Books, 2002. First U.S. Edition. Soft Cover. New/No Jacket. Photographs. The author of over 100 plays, short story collections, and novels, Agatha Christie has been outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Though many have tried to copy her, no one has succeeded, and Christie remains the bestselling modern writer throughout the world. Now Charles Osborne, a lifelong student of Agatha Christie, has created a comprehensive guide to her world as examined through her books. Illustrated with rarely seen photos and updated to include details of the publications, films, and TV adaptations of her writings, thisbook provides fascinating reading for any Christie aficionado. 421 pages including bibliography, notes, and an index. Also includes 32 pages of black & white photographs. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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New York, New York, U.S.A.: Owl Books, 1998. First Trade Paperback Edition. Soft Cover. New/No Jacket. Photographs. Vanity Fair said about this book "The tumultuous life of Dawn Powell, the vastly undervalued comic literary novelist who could arm-wrestle Dorothy Parker to a draw, is fabulously rendered in Tim Page's entertaining book." The author explores the fascinating ironies and sad complexities of Powell's life and work. Powell lived in New York City for forty-seven years but always maintained the perspective of a "permanent visitor." She distilled this into her many poems, stories, articles, plays, and her dizzying and inventive novels. Gore Vidal once referred to her as our best comic novelist, deserving to be as widely read as Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Page's biography is a celebration of her triumphant rise from the ashes of near oblivion to her stablishment among the giants of twentieth-century American literature. 362 pages including notes, bibliography, acknowledgments, and an index. 16 pages of photographs are present. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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New York, New York, U.S.A.: Owl Books, 1999. First Softcover Edition. Soft Cover. New/No Jacket. The New Yorker said: "Tim Page's artfully annotated selection of Powell's letters lays bare . . . her triumphs and misadventures. . . . Its darkest moments are almost refexively transformed by her supple wit." This volume traces a richly talented writer's fifty-two-year journey from her childhood in a small Ohio town to the glitter of Manhattan. Powell wa a prolific letter writer, and her correspondence provides an intimate look at the woman about whom The New York Times recently said: " (She) is wittier than Dorothy Parker, dissects the rich better than F. Scott Fitzgerald, and is more plaintive than Willa Cather in her evocation of the heartland, and has more supple control of satirical voice than Evelyn Waugh." Living most of her life in Grenwich Village, Powell supported herself as a writer through the Great Depression and two world wars while nursing an autistic son, an alcoholic husband, and her own parade of illnesses. In her correspondence we find the record of a courageous and dramatic woman who produced fifteen novels, ten plays, and more than one hundred stories. 373 pages including an index. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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New York, New York, U.S.A.: Riverhead Books, 1998. First Edition. Hard Cover. New/New. Molly Peacock is an award-winning, nationally recognized poet. She is also childless by choice. Over the years she found herself addressing - both internally and to others - crucial matters of self-definition: Was it possible to be a "complete woman" without having children? How does a woman talk about her life if it doesn't involve motherhood? How do people grow up if they don't have children? Peacock puts language to the decisions she made, seeking to learn how her chances became her choices, how, in the words of Simone de Beauvoir, "a destiny" is affected by "a freedom." Beautifully written, pure and stirring with timely and relevant issues. 337 pages, binding is half-cloth. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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New York: W W Norton & Co Inc., 2000. Soft Cover. New/No Jacket. Photographs. Ernest Hemingway's triumphs as a writer during the 1940s and '50s accompanied a life of risk and danger. The author discovered the truth about Hemingway's activities during the war years, including running a counterintelligence operation in Havana. The postware period was the most productive of Hemingway's writing life, when he authored the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Old Man and the Sea and received the Nobel Prize. Even as Hemingway graced the cover of Life magazine, his physical and mental health deteriorated while his public image as hunter and sportsman continued to demand a strenuous life. In 1961 he committed suicide, leaving behind the stuff of which American myths are made. 416 pages with index; the back cover is scuffed. 10 pages of photographs. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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New York, New York, U.S.A.: Da Capo Press, 2003. First Edition. Soft Cover. New/No Jacket. Photographs. A strong and sympathetic portrait." - New York Times Book Review. Born in 1856 in upstate New York, Baum was a classic "late bloomer" who tried acting, selling and editing. Finally, in his late 30s, he took the advice of his mother-in-law, suffragist leader Matilda Gage, and turned his attention to selling the stories he'd been tellin to his sons and their friends. After a few books were published with varying success, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (originally titled The Emerald City) was released in 1900. It quickly became a bestseller and has remained so ever since. When Oz was transformed in a "traveling music extravaganza" that earned raves across America, Baum became rich and famous for the firt time in his life, inspiring him to embark on a myraid theatrical ventures that almost bankrupted his family on several occasions. Fortunately, wife Maud's business acumen saved the day, leaving Baum free to pen thirteen additional OZ books and other fantasies. 318 pages including a listing of works by Baum, a bibliography and extensive index. Munchin land never knew a better man. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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New York: Harper and Row, 1985. First Harper & Row Edition. Hard Cover. Fine/Near Fine. Published again after almost sixty years, this is a semi-autobiographical account of life in Ohio around World War I, and the move she made to New York around that time. The heroine in this book wants to become an author, but is steered away from that by family. However, upon going to New York she meets many people who encourage her to write; the result is this rich, warm and evocative novel. The jacket has a 1/2" tear in the back at the top. Pages clean and unmarked. Price is not clipped. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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New York, New York, U.S.A.: Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc., 2002. First Edition. Hard Cover. As New/Near Fine. Photographs. A moving, powerful and sympathetic biography of a talented, frail woman who deserves to be rescued from the obscurity to which she was condemned." - The Spectator. This book is about the long-suppressed truth about Vivienne Eliot's influence on T.S. Eliot's genius. By the time she was committed to an asylum in 1938, Vivienne Eliot was a lonely, distraught figure. Shunned by literary London, she was the "neurotic" wife whom Eliot had left behind. She had become a phantomlike shape on the fringe of Eliot's life, written out of his biography and literary history. This astonishing portrait of Vivienne Eliot gives a voice to the woman who, for seventeen years, had shared a unique literary partnership with Eliot. Vivienne longed to tell her whole story: She wrote in her diary "You who in later years will read these very words of mine will be able to trace a true history of the epoch." She believed (as did Virginia Woolf) that she was Eliot's muse, the woman through whom he transmuted life into art. Yet Vivienne knew the secrets of his separate and secret life - which contributed to her final abandoment. The binding is maroon and grey, with deep blue end papers. 698 pages including notes, a bibliography, and index. The jacket has a bit of rubbing on the back. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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New York, New York, U.S.A.: Owl Books, 2001. First Softcover Edition. Soft Cover. New/No Jacket. This book is a The Edgar Award for Best Biographical Work winner. The New York Time Book Review said "[An] excellent biography of the man who created Sherlock Holmes." More than one hundred years have passed since the creation of Holmes, perhaps the most famous fictional character of all time. But while the legendary detective lives on in our imagination, his creater if often overlooked or misunderstood. This fresh and compelling biography examines the extraordinary life and strange contrasts of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the struggling provincial doctor who became the most popular storyteller of his age. 472 pages including a bibliography, acknowledgments and an index. Several pages of black and white photographs are included. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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