A YEAR AT THE SORBONNE, A PROUSTIAN LIFE. by Pollak, Oliver B - 2002-01-01

Council Bluffs, Iowa: The Yellow Barn Press, 2002. First Edition, First Printing. Small Quarto (9 3/4 x 6 1/2 inches; 247 x 162 mm), xii, [2] 127, [3] pages, in quarter-cloth and patterned boards, paper label to spine, in a patterned slipcase. One of only 150 copies, this is a biography of Elmo Elton Shaver (1916-1995), a Francophile and popular teacher of foreign languages. Elmo kept diaries documenting his life from tenth grade until just days before his death. Oliver Pollak, a lawyer and professor of history at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, has drawn from Elmo's diaries to paint a vivid picture of his life. We follow him growing up in Long Beach and his 1937 junior year at the Sorbonne in Paris. (That year had a profound influence on Elmo, and he was a frequent visitor during the rest of his life.) We also learn about his embrace of Christian Science, his distaste for the New Deal, his decades of teaching languages at Orange Coast College in California, and his attraction to men. This… Read More

Council Bluffs: Yellow Barn Press, 2002. Edition limited to 150 copies (this, no. 12); 8vo, pp. xii, [2], 127, [3]; 4 pages of photographic inserts; title-page vignette and chapter headers engraved by Sandy Connors printed in blue; original quarter blue cloth, patterned paper-covered boards also by Connors, paper label on spine, fine. From the library of Kim Merker. Original prospectus laid in. A biography of Elmo Shaver, elder brother of Yellow Barn Press proprietor Neil Shaver, which draws from almost 70 years-worth of diaries and covers his early education, his year in Paris, his career as a teacher, and his experience as a gay man through the 20th century.

Council Bluffs: Yellow Barn Press, 2002. Edition limited to 150 copies, this, the bookbinder Greg Campbell's copy, Campbell-Logan Bindery, and out-of-series; 8vo, pp. xii, [2], 127, [3]; 4 pages of photographic inserts; title-page vignette and chapter headers engraved by Sandy Connors printed in blue; original quarter blue cloth, patterend paper-covered boards also by Connors, paper label on spine, fine. Original prospectus laid in. A biography of Elmo Shaver, elder brother of Yellow Barn Press proprieter Neil Shaver, which draws from almost 70 years worth of diaries and covers his early education, his year in Paris, his career as a teacher, and his experience as a gay man through the 20th century.