Search Results: Authors starting with L from The Second Shelf

Philadelphia: Zeigler, McCurdy & Company, 1867. Cloth cover with embossed emblem ZMcC&co. 15 x 22.5 x 2cm. [1867] A New York State salesperson's sample and order book, with three examples of alternate bindings attached to endpapers. Includes preface, detailed table of contents for the 800 planned pages, introduction, sample pages from 5 chapters, index, 14 steel portraits, 7 pages of positive reviews and a double page prospectus of the work. Bound in are order forms listing name, residence and style of binding with 36 subscribers listed. Wonderful source for publishing history and local history, subscription publishing was popular in the USA after the Civil War; canvassers were often women recruited by newspaper advertisements. Spotting throughout, pencil mark to cover, cloth spine covering coming off, pen mark on blank order form, shows all signs of being a working book.

The Climate of Belief is the author's second novel, completed when she was just twenty-two, after a difficult childhood of abuse and suicide attempts. Jennifer Lash, later Jini Fiennes, wrote this at the beginning of her life, before taking a 15-year-break from writing to raise children, including filmmakers Sophie and Martha and actors Ralph and Joseph. The Climate of Belief is three-way drama between a monk, his Abbot, and a young woman, Isabella Barton, and explores faith and religion.
London: Victor Gollancz, 1962. First edition, publisher's file copy. Hardback. 192 pages. 15 x 13 x 2. Some small marks and scuffs to dust jacket. Very good in very good jacket.

Five stories set in the back woods and bayous of Louisiana, including the title tale, an emotional awakening story of a young woman of no pretensions or wealth saving a traveller from a rising river. Unique setting and mix of the everyday, comic and sentimental. Printed by The Truth Book and Job Office of Baton Rouge, whose other publications of 1895 are the local Police Code and agricultural report. Scarce in the UK.
Baton Rouge: The Truth Book and Job Office, 1895. 132 pages. 21 x 14 x 1cm. First edition. Paperback. Tears and markings to pictorial paper cover, loss to spine cover. Condition is good, with complete text box with thread binding as shown, spotting on title page, toning to pages.

Born Violet Paget in Bologne, France in 1856 to British parents, writer Vernon Lee was a harpsichord-playing expert of the Italian Renaissance who also wrote short stories preoccupied with hauntings and possession. In addition to writing under a man's name, she is known for dressing à la garçonne. She was a lesbian and had three committed relationships with women in her life.
Lee was also known for her criticism and support of the Aesthetics Movement and for her pacifism and feminism. Lee was well-connected and successful in her lifetime, despite her alternative lifestyle, but ultimately was blacklisted after her condemnation of WWI. Long forgotten, her work was rediscovered by feminist academics in the 1990s and she has regained much of her literary reputation, but she still deserves to reclaim a broader readership.
For Maurice is her third and last collection of weird fiction, and contains an insightful introduction by Lee to her stories, and an exquisite example of a humorous fantasy, "Winthrop's… Read More

New York: Rizzoli, 2016. Pink cloth boards with white and black lettering. Flowered endpapers. Gilt edges. 20 x 14.5 cm. 317 pages. In presentation box with matching lining paper and pink cloth, photograph of a textile portrait of Le-Tan laid onto the top. A striking image-led biography of the Paris fashion designer best known for her book handbags, using embroidery and traditional needlecraft to replicate book jackets. Signed by Olympia Le-Tan to the title page. One page details the book clutch Le-Tan made for Tilda Swinton based on the book Ant and Bee, the next shows vintage Pelican book covers, or childhood photos. An immersive fashion experience at a fraction of the handbag cost, in a very elegant production from Rizzoli.

London, 1971. Shrew was a feminist journal produced by the Women's Liberation Workshop in London from 1969 to 1974. This is a set of four issues (vol 3. no. 4, 6, 7 and 9) Themes include night cleaners, the family, sisterhood and menstruation, a nice selection that demonstrates the conversations and discussion of the feminist movement in London at the time.

Alfred Knopf, 1967. First edition in English. Hardback, 361 pp. Green cloth binding shows very slight fading throughout and slight bumping to the corners. In near fine condition. Dust jacket is only slightly worn on the top and bottom edges, price-clipped on front flap. In near fine condition.The Apple in the Dark is Lispector's first novel to ever be translated into English. Translated and introduced by Gregory Rabassa, arguably the most important translator of South American literature into English of the second half of the twentieth century. This novel is both a reflection of the Brazillian literary climate of modernism and innovation and of Lispector's personal style, introspective and claustrophobic, as Rabassa writes, "closer perhaps to original thought patterns than the language had ever managed to approach before". Lispector was born in Ukraine to a Jewish family who was already en-route to Brazil to escape persecution during the Russian Civil War. Her family history of migration and trauma… Read More

University of Minnesota Press, 1989. First edition. Paperback, 80 pp. White graphic wraps with moderate shelf wear. Spine is slightly rubbed and creased. Very good condition. Clarice Lispector's seventh novel, originally titled Água Viva, is considered to be her masterpiece. It is a perfect example of her particular poetic style, her profound understanding of language and her ability to play beyond its boundaries. It was first translated into English by Elizabeth Lowe and Earl Fitz for this edition, as part of the Emergent Literatures series. Published many years before Lispector became renowned in the English speaking world. It includes an introduction by Hélène Cixous, who was a translator of the novel herself into French.

London: Homes and Gardens;Woman and Home, 1964. A time capsule Sixties wardrobe in four sewing patterns, each in original mailing envelope addressed to Mrs. L. K. Lloyds 1964-67. The sizes of patterns was written on the front of the mailing envelope, perhaps a deterrent to mail ordering for some. 1964 Homes and Gardens No. 5118, a minimalist skirt and top set with asymmetric detail, size 40. 1965 Homes and Gardens No. 5147 a minimalist dress with knot belt detail, size 38. 1965 Homes and Gardens No. 5143, a three-piece simple Chanel-style suit with trim on the jacket, size 38. 1967 Woman and Home B 388, a back-zip panelled dress with alternate roll, v or tie necklines, size 40/42. Lloyd also placed in the pattern envelope two full page ads from a magazine featuring two models wearing the dresses, which were for the "novice dressmaker", as perhaps she was still! During the period, Lloyds was primarily in Birmingham. Each envelope 15 x 22.5, envelopes show wear, pattern pieces and instructions all in… Read More

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1930. Collection by Lowell, the Pulitzer Prize winning lesbian poet, published for the first time after her death. A collection of poetry and essays on other poets, including Emily Dickinson, and Walt Whitman. With a laid in postcard from The R L James Book Company of Providence to a customer regarding the book, postmarked 6 Oct 1931.
Hardcover. 232 pages. 18 x 12 cm. Printed by the Riverside Press Cambridge. First edition. Pale green paper boards with white label to the front panel. Black cloth spine with white label. In the scarce complete dust jacket with some age toning to spine. Book and patterned dust jacket in very good condition.

Silver Spring: National Institute of Drycleaning, 1967. Second printing of the revised edition, includes 200 fabric samples, 150 black & white and 58 colour photos of fabric. Index, bibliography. Red cloth boards, title printed in gilt on front cover and spine, binding in excellent condition. 29x22 cm - XX, [1], 571 pages. Minor spotting to title page, endpaper. All samples present (4 no longer attached by adhesive). Minor spotting to 15 samples due to interactions with adhesives. In very good condition.An important association copy documenting the work of three women, Dr. Dorothy Siegert Lyle, Eileen Heagney, and June Wilbur. Signed by the author on the title page "To my dear friend June: I hope Focus on Fabrics serves you well! It should be a constant reminder of Eileen and the programs we believe in so deeply. Fondly, Dot January 16, 1969".Dr. Lyle documented the rapid developments from the 1950s-1970s in the manufacture and care of all kinds of textiles, to enable consumers to maintain the… Read More