Arts
Composer Meredith Willson once described The Music Man as “an Iowan’s attempt to pay tribute to his home state.” Never once forgetting his roots, Willson reflects on the ups and downs, surprises and disappointments, and finally successes of the making of one of America’s most popular musicals. His whimsical, personable writing style will bring readers back in time with him to the 1950s to experience firsthand the exciting trials and tribulations of creating a Broadway masterpiece. A newfound admiration for The Music Man—and the man behind the music—is sure to follow.
1st edition; dust jacket in protective cover; edges chipped and creased; spine tanned; covers lightly soiled; beige cloth with maroon lettering on spine; endpapers lightly tanned; former owner's name in ink on ffep; front hinge weak; text clean. G/G
London: Hanover Gallery, 1971. Accordion-bound paperback artist's book; gouache drawings by William Scott reproduced as part of the 1970-1970 series A Girl Surveyed exhibited at the Hanover Gallery, March-April 1971; fifty copies were numbered and signed - this copy is not numbered or signed. Light smudges on covers; spine creased; interior clean and bright. G
Tennessee Williams (1911-1983), one of the 20th century's most superb writers, was also one of its most successful and prolific. His classic works include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, Summer and Smoke, Camino Real, Sweet Bird of Youth, Night of the Iguana, Orpheus Descending, and The Rose Tattoo.
A Streetcar Named Desire is one of the most remarkable plays of our time. It created an immortal woman in the character of Blanche DuBois, the haggard and fragile southern beauty whose pathetic last grasp at happiness is cruelly destroyed. It shot Marlon Brando to fame in the role of Stanley Kowalski, a sweat-shirted barbarian, the crudely sensual brother-in-law who precipitated Blanche's tragedy.
New Directions, 1947, 1st edition, fourth printing (stated on copyright page). Dust jacket in protective cover; large tear at top of front cover; top of front cover creased; spine chipped; orange boards with cover design in black and white; edges worn and frayed; corners bumped; binding good; text clean. G/G-
Born in rural Kentucky, Mickey Hess grew up listening to the militant rap of Public Enemy while living in a place where the state song still included the word "darkies." Listening to hip-hop made Hess think about what it meant to be white, while the environment in small-town Kentucky encouraged him to avoid or even mock such self-examination.
With America's history of cultural appropriation, we've come to mistrust white people who participate deeply in black culture, but backing away from black culture is too easy a solution. As a white professor with a longstanding commitment to teaching hip-hop music and culture, Hess argues that white people have a responsibility to educate themselves by listening to black voices and then teach other whites to face the ways they benefit from racial injustices.
In our fraught moment, A Guest in the House of Hip Hop offers a point of entry for readers committed to racial justice, but uncertain about white people's role in relation to black culture.
The devastation of war is tearing the Bharata family apart. The new king must unravel a mystery: how can he live with himself in the face of the devastation and massacres that he has caused?
An immense canvas in miniature, this central section of the ancient text is timeless and contemporary, asking how we can find inner peace in a world riven with conflict.
A beautifully illustrated visual and cultural history of the color blue throughout the ages
Blue has had a long and topsy-turvy history in the Western world. The ancient Greeks scorned it as ugly and barbaric, but most Americans and Europeans now cite it as their favorite color. In this fascinating history, the renowned medievalist Michel Pastoureau traces the changing meanings of blue from its rare appearance in prehistoric art to its international ubiquity today.
Any history of color is, above all, a social history. Pastoureau investigates how the ever-changing role of blue in society has been reflected in manuscripts, stained glass, heraldry, clothing, paintings, and popular culture. Beginning with the almost total absence of blue from ancient Western art and language, the story moves to medieval Europe. As people began to associate blue with the Virgin Mary, the color became a powerful element in church decoration and symbolism. Blue gained new favor as a royal color in the twelfth century and became a formidable political and military force during the French Revolution. As blue triumphed in the modern era, new shades were created and blue became the color of romance and the blues. Finally, Pastoureau follows blue into contemporary times, when military clothing gave way to the everyday uniform of blue jeans and blue became the universal and unifying color of the Earth as seen from space.
Beautifully illustrated, Blue tells the intriguing story of our favorite color and the cultures that have hated it, loved it, and made it essential to some of our greatest works of art.
-- "Choice"
The only official companion book to the Tony Award winner for Best Musical from the creators of South Park and the co-creator of Avenue Q. Features the complete script and song lyrics, with 4-color spot illustrations throughout, an original introduction by the creators, and a foreword by Mark Harris.
The Book of Mormon, which follows a pair of mismatched Mormon boys sent on a mission to a place that's about as far from Salt Lake City as you can get, features book, music, and lyrics by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone.
Parker and Stone are the four-time Emmy Award-winning creators of Comedy Central's landmark animated series South Park. Tony Award-winner Lopez is co-creator of the long-running hit musical comedy Avenue Q. The Book of Mormon is choreographed by three-time Tony Award-nominee Casey Nicholaw (Monty Python's Spamalot, The Drowsy Chaperone) and is directed by Nicholaw and Parker.
The book includes - an original foreword by journalist Mark Harris (author of Pictures at a Revolution) - an original introduction by the authors on the genesis of the show - a production history - the complete book and lyrics, with four-color spot illustrations throughout.
Boss Ladies of CLE features the stories and photos of twenty leading women—from a James Beard Award–nominated chef to hip-hop artists to the CEO of a global brand. Some are well known figures, and others are rising stars. Some have formal training, but many are self-taught.
Through their stories, we gain an authentic, attainable portrait of success and learn what it means to be a Boss Lady. As the only book that focuses exclusively on the careers of women in Cleveland, it’s an essential read for women and girls that debunks the mentality that you have to move away to make it.
In this brilliant book of recollection, one of America's finest writers re-creates people, places, and events spanning some fifty years, bringing to life an entire era through one man's sensibility. Scenes of love and desire, friendship, ambition, life in foreign cities and New York, are unforgettably rendered here in the unique style for which James Salter is widely admired.
Burning the Days captures a singular life, beginning with a Manhattan boyhood and then, satisfying his father's wishes, graduation from West Point, followed by service in the Air Force as a pilot. In some of the most evocative pages ever written about flying, Salter describes the exhilaration and terror of combat as a fighter pilot in the Korean War, scenes that are balanced by haunting pages of love and a young man's passion for women.
After resigning from the Air Force, Salter begins a second life, becoming a writer in the New York of the 1960s. Soon films beckon. There are vivid portraits of actors, directors, and producers—Polanski, Robert Redford, and others. Here also, more important, are writers who were influential, some by their character, like Irwin Shaw, others because of their taste and knowledge.
Ultimately Burning the Days is an illumination of what it is to be a man, and what it means to become a writer.
Signed first edition in near fine condition.
Carleton Watkins (1829–1916) is widely considered the greatest American photographer of the nineteenth century and arguably the most influential artist of his era. He is best known for his pictures of Yosemite Valley and the nearby Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias. Watkins made his first trip to Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove in 1861 just as the Civil War was beginning. His photographs of Yosemite were exhibited in New York for the first time in 1862, as news of the Union’s disastrous defeat at Fredericksburg was landing in newspapers and while the Matthew Brady Studio’s horrific photographs of Antietam were on view. Watkins’s work tied the West to Northern cultural traditions and played a key role in pledging the once-wavering West to Union.
Motivated by Watkins’s pictures, Congress would pass legislation, later signed by Abraham Lincoln, that preserved Yosemite as the prototypical “national park,” the first such act of landscape preservation in the world. Watkins’s photographs helped shape America’s idea of the West, and helped make the West a full participant in the nation. His pictures of California, Oregon, and Nevada, as well as modern-day Washington, Utah, and Arizona, not only introduced entire landscapes to America but were important to the development of American business, finance, agriculture, government policy, and science.
1st edition; published by Fraenkel Gallery, in association with Bedford Arts, Publishers, San Francisco. Essay by Peter E. Palmquist; dust jacket has very light scuffing; tan buckram with brown lettering on cover and spine; former owner's signature in ink on ffep; binding tight; text clean and bright. VG/VG
Cats in Art celebrates the work of Susan Herbert, whose paintings have been delighting cat fans and culture buffs for decades. Her trademark blend of humor and feline enthusiasm makes her art instantly recognizable to cat lovers everywhere. Since her first collection, The Cats Gallery of Art, was published in 1990, her work has appeared in numerous books that feature cats in iconic works of art, scenes from operas, Shakespearean plays, and movies.
In this new compilation of her work, renowned paper engineer Corina Fletcher has transformed six of Herbert's most-loved paintings into three- dimensional works of art, including Herbert's interpretations of classic paintings by Jan van Eyck, Sandro Botticelli, Diego Velázquez, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, John Everett Millais, and Édouard Manet. Each of these clever and charming feline portraits is accompanied by engaging and lively text, which illuminates the drama unfolding on the page.
Charming and fun, this book of pop-ups will delight fans of Susan Herbert as well as those encountering her work for the first time.
Paul Claudel (1868-1955) was the author of numerous plays and several volumes of poetry.
Yale University Press, 1920. 1st edition. Translated from the French by John Strong Newberry. Inscribed by translator. No dust jacket. Dark gray cloth over light gray boards; title and author on paper label on spine; covers lightly soiled; corners bumped; endpapers foxed; deckled edges. G-
A modern verse play about the search for meaning, in which a psychiatrist is the catalyst for the action. “An authentic modern masterpiece” (New York Post). “Eliot really does portray real-seeming characters. He cuts down his poetic effects to the minimum, and then finally rewards us with most beautiful poetry” (Stephen Spender).
1st American edition; dust jacket in protective cover; spine faded; covers lightly foxed; black cloth; endpapers tanned and lightly foxed; binding good; text clean. G/G
Garden City Books, Garden City, NY, 1936; illustrated by Rockwell Kent, with a preface by Christopher Morley; dust jacket in protective cover; front and spine chipped and creased; rear cover has large tear that crosses from spine to edge, but text is legible; gray and red cloth with gilt lettering; former owner's name in ink on ffep and list of readers' names on verso of ffep; binding good; text clean. G/G-
A direct and fundamentally optimistic indictment of the short-sightedness and intellectual arrogance that has characterized much of urban planning in this century, The Death and Life of Great American Cities has, since its first publication in 1961, become the standard against which all endeavors in that field are measured. In prose of outstanding immediacy, Jane Jacobs writes about what makes streets safe or unsafe; about what constitutes a neighborhood, and what function it serves within the larger organism of the city; about why some neighborhoods remain impoverished while others regenerate themselves. She writes about the salutary role of funeral parlors and tenement windows, the dangers of too much development money and too little diversity. Compassionate, bracingly indignant, and always keenly detailed, Jane Jacobs's monumental work provides an essential framework for assessing the vitality of all cities.
1st edition, 3rd printing; dust jacket in protective glassine wrapper that has sun damage, but jacket itself is clean and undamaged; black cloth with dark red brick design on covers and gold and red lettering on spine; top edge slightly faded; binding good; text clean and bright. VG/VG
From director and cofounder of the Royal Shakespeare Company Peter Brook, The Empty Space is a timeless analysis of theatre from the most influential stage director of the twentieth century. Peter Brook draws on a life in love with the stage to explore the issues facing a theatrical performance—of any scale. He describes important developments in theatre from the last century, as well as smaller scale events, from productions by Stanislavsky to the rise of Method Acting, from Brecht’s revolutionary alienation technique to the free form happenings of the 1960s, and from the different styles of such great Shakespearean actors as John Gielgud and Paul Scofield to a joyous impromptu performance in the burnt-out shell of the Hamburg Opera just after the war. Passionate, unconventional, and fascinating, this book shows how theatre defies rules, builds and shatters illusions, and creates lasting memories for its audiences.
New York: Atheneum, 1968. 1st American edition. Dust jacket price clipped; top edges tanned; white embossed cloth with red lettering on spine; binding tight; text clean and bright. VG/G+
In her New York Times bestseller Between You & Me, Mary Norris delighted readers with her irreverent tales of pencils and punctuation in The New Yorker's celebrated copy department. In Greek to Me, she delivers another wise and funny paean to the art of self-expression, this time filtered through her greatest passion: all things Greek.
Greek to Me is a charming account of Norris's lifelong love affair with words and her solo adventures in the land of olive trees and ouzo. Along the way, Norris explains how the alphabet originated in Greece, makes the case for Athena as a feminist icon, goes searching for the fabled Baths of Aphrodite, and reveals the surprising ways Greek helped form English. Filled with Norris's memorable encounters with Greek words, Greek gods, Greek wine--and more than a few Greek men--Greek to Me is the Comma Queen's fresh take on Greece and the exotic yet strangely familiar language that so deeply influences our own.
"Unflinchingly honest and remarkably candid, Matthew McConaughey's book invites us to grapple with the lessons of his life as he did--and to see that the point was never to win, but to understand."--Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck I've been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me. Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life's challenges--how to get relative with the inevitable--you can enjoy a state of success I call "catching greenlights." So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops. Hopefully, it's medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot's license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears. It's a love letter. To life. It's also a guide to catching more greenlights--and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too. Good luck.
"This is a riotous story which is reasonably mad and as accurate as a Marx brother can make it. Despite only a year and a half of schooling, Harpo, or perhaps his collaborator, is the best writer of the Marx Brother. Highly recommended." Library Journal
"A funny, affectionate and unpretentious autobiography done with a sharply professional assist from Rowland Barber." New York Times Book Review
Bernard Geis Associates, 1961, stated First Printing. Dust jacket in protective cover; dj has tears and creases; spine tanned; covers soiled and scuffed; edges tanned; blue cloth spine over light blue boards speckled with red and yellow; gilt lettering on spine; spine edges pulled; hinges weak; binding floppy in middle; text and photos clean. G/G-
Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne, a new play by Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. The play will receive its world premiere in London's West End on July 30, 2016.
It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn't much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children.
While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.
This Special Rehearsal Edition will be available to purchase until early 2017, after which a Definitive Edition of the script will go on sale.
Traditional Japanese packaging is an art form that applies sophisticated design and natural aesthetics to simple objects. In this elegant presentation of the baskets, boxes, wrappers, and containers that were used in ordinary, day-to-day life, we are offered a stunning example of a time before mass production. Largely constructed of bamboo, rice straw, hemp twine, paper, and leaves, all of the objects shown here are made from natural materials. Through 221 black-and-white photographs of authentic examples of traditional Japanese packaging—with commentary on the origins, materials, and use of each piece—the items here offer a look into a lost art, while also reminding us of the connection to nature and the human imprint of handwork that was once so alive and vibrant in our everyday lives.
First Edition for the United States published by Harper and Row in 1967, after the original Japanese edition of 1965. Written by Hide Yuki Oka, foreword by George Nelson, photography by Michikazu Sakai. Traditional elegant designs for packaging ordinary objects in Japan reflect their time and culture. 4to, 203 pages, full page illustrations in exquisite black and white, dust jacket with protective cover, glossy white with blind embossing on front hardcover, bump to right lower edge, interior fine. VG/VG.
Leonard Nimoy, the actor, recounts his experiences acting the role of Mr. Spock, Star Trek's unflappable Vulcan, his reactions to his fame, and his continuing identification with Spock
Del Rey, 1977, first Ballantine Books edition. Mass market paperback. VG++
Leonard Nimoy, the actor, recounts his experiences acting the role of Mr. Spock, Star Trek's unflappable Vulcan, his reactions to his fame, and his continuing identification with Spock
Celestial Arts, 1st edition, 1975. VG
Baskin's illustrated essays are his homage to the artists for whom he feels not only kinship but a deep and singular dedication. These are his companions, his exemplars in the lonely agony of creation, and each portrait seemingly imbues him with the attributes of his subject. Written in a style as complex and idiosyncratic as his art, the essays offer Baskin's insights into the spirit and passion of figures from Rembrandt to Eakins, Anne Allen to Paula Modersohn Becker. Though technical details, biographical facts, and quotes from authorities are included, the book is an intense and essentially personal celebration of creativity at times so strangely religious that it might best be described as a book of devotions. Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Museum Lib., New York (Library Journal, 1988)
1st U.S. edition; dust jacket lightly soiled; spine lightly faded; red cloth with gilt lettering on front cover and spine; edges slightly faded; binding tight; text clean and bright. VG/G+
"This is a comedy set in a cemetery, a ribald satire on prejudice. In it Johnny Speight lampoons the dubious logic and unlovely self-interest that lie behind a whole spectrum of British social, religious and political attitudes, ranging from liberal to reactionary. It is both a funny and an uncomfortably accurate play from the author of the television series, Till Death Us Do Part."
Softcover; creased, soiled, spine worn; water damage to bottom inside corner of covers and text; ink and highlighting throughout text; ink notes on inside rear cover; former owner's name in ink on first page. Scarce. G-
Not only was Frank O'Hara (1926-1966) one of the most important American poets of his generation, he was also intimately involved with the art world of the 1950s and 1960s, a time when New York had become the cultural capital of the world. As an associate curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara organized a series of important exhibitions, notably of the work of Franz Kline and of Robert Motherwell. In Memory of My Feelings explores this key period in modern art by presenting artists who were associated with O'Hara and whose seminal works are reflected in his poetry.
Limited edition, number 981/2500; published by Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1967; 30 poems illustrated by 30 artists, on gathered sheets in portfolio and slipcase as issued; top of slipcase soiled; front and top of slipcase lightly foxed; light foxing on cloth edge of front cover; inside is clean and bright. G+/G
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1924. 1st edition. Edited by Frank Shay; decorations and woodcuts by Edw. A. Wilson; introduction by William McFee. Signed by illustrator. No dust jacket; blue boards with teal spine; inlaid white paper label with title and illustrations on front cover; orange paper label with title and decoration on spine; boards scuffed; corners bumped and worn; spine head pulled and frayed; spine edge near front cover faded and has two water spots; illustrated endpapers; gift inscription in ink on ffep; front hinge weak; text clean and bright. G
The first book-length biography of Dean to appear after his death, written by a friend (and former UCLA classmate). Issued simultaneously in paperback, this is the much scarcer hardcover printing. Many years later, Bast published another book, "Surviving James Dean," that touched on certain aspects of the actor's life that were a little too sensitive to be aired in the 1950s. The striking jacket photo of Dean (by Roy Schatt) is also reproduced inside the book. VG/VG
The first book-length biography of James Dean to appear after his death, written by a friend (and former UCLA classmate). Issued simultaneously in both paperback and hardcover. This is the Ballantine Books vintage paperback, 1956, in good condition.
James Branch Cabell (1879-1958) was an American author of fantasy fiction and belles-lettres. Cabell was well-regarded by his contemporaries, including H. L. Mencken, Edmund Wilson, and Sinclair Lewis. His works were considered escapist and fit well in the culture of the 1920s, when they were most popular.
His 1921 play, The Jewel Merchants is set in early sixteenth-century Tuscany and explores the moral lassitude and selective ethics of a coterie of businessmen. It's a thoroughly entertaining look at a past culture that is sure to tickle readers' funny bones.
New York; Robert M. McBride & Company, 1921. Limited edition, no. 589 of 1,040. Brown cloth with gilt decoration on cover; spine lettering faded; endpapers tanned; deckled edges; binding tight; text clean. G+
The third volume of the Chagall Lithographs Catalog Raissone.
1st U.S. edition; published by Boston Book and Art Shop, Inc., Boston, Massachusetts. Printed in France. Translated from the French by George Lawrence. Notes and Catalogue Fernand Mourlot and Charles Sorlier. Original Lithograph frontis. Dust jacket in protective cover; small tear at front bottom right corner; binding tight; text clean and bright. VG/VG
Two-page introduction followed by 12 full page woodcuts. Mardersteig's commentary is printed on each facing page. One leaf of contents. One of 300 copies printed at the Officina Bodoni. Masereel's woodcuts (which first appeared in the 1929 "Operation of a Hand Press") are printed from the original woodblocks.
Verona: Officina Bodoni, 1973.Scarce and near fine.
One of Rolling Stone Magazine's 25 Greatest Rock Memoirs of All Time
For the first time, rock music icon Gregg Allman, one of the founding members of The Allman Brothers Band, tells the full story of his life and career in My Cross to Bear. No subject is taboo, as one of the true giants of rock ’n’ roll opens up about his Georgia youth, his long struggle with substance abuse, his string of bad marriages (including his brief union with superstar Cher), the tragic death of brother Duane Allman, and life on the road in one of rock’s most legendary bands.
1st edition; signed by author on half title; dust jacket has sticker on front cover indicating that it is an autographed copy; rear cover has slight scratches; gray boards; illustrated endpapers. VG+/VG
Clean and tight within. The Associated Publishers, Washington, DC, 1938, nod. VG
Published by Contemporary Play Publications; Volume II, no. 4, October 1938. Contents: Plays: "The Jar," Luigi Pirandello; "Don't You Want To Be Free," Langston Hughes; Television Script: "It's Really Quite Simple," Harold L. Anderson; Film Sequence: "Blockade," John Howard Lawson; Departments: Music in the Theatre - One Act Opera, Paul Rosenfield; The Theatre, John W. Gassner. Wraps, stapled; covers have water stains, remnants of tape; corners creased; spine missing 1" from bottom; tear at top of spine/front cover; pages slightly tanned. G-
A folio of 27 separate black and white reproductions of Kent's drawings, illustrations, paintings, each 9 x 12 inches on art sheets; 32-page booklet containing excerpts from Kent's writings, 12 articles by his close friends, and tributes of fellow artists; published by National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, New York, 1971.
Folio wrapper has three tears along edges; some tanning due to sun; former owner's name in ink on cover; booklet and prints in excellent condition; small crimp to bottom left corners of prints. G
Exceptionally rare first U.S. PB edition, published 1991 by Bedford Arts, Solitude of Ravens is one of the most important photo-books to come out of Japan, let alone one of the most important photo-books of the 20th century. All editions of this book are extremely rare and increasingly valuable in both the private photo-book market as well as at art-book auctions.
1st U.S. edition, published by Bedford Arts, Publishers, 1991. First published in 1986 as Ravens by Sokyu-sha Co., Ltd., Japan. Softcover; scratch and scuffs on bottom right side of front cover; some scuffs on rear cover; otherwise in very good condition. G+
Art by Gloria Vanderbilt illuminates stories by Richard Burgin. We have two copies available of this limited edition book, signed by both the author and artist. One copy is number 150/500 and one copy is number 171/500. Both are in very good condition with dust jackets showing minimal wear.
Generally agreed to be one of the most significant forces in the history of the American theater, O'Neill is a three-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize in literature for 1936. He won one of his Pulitzer prizes for Strange Interlude. The play exemplifies O'Neill's ability to explore the limits of the human predicament, even as he sounds the depths of his audiences' hearts and it was probably the furor of discussion aroused by the novelty both of theme and treatment in Strange Interlude that made O'Neill's name known wherever the English-speaking stage is discussed.
Boni & Liveright, 1928. Dust jacket in protective cover; attractive but tattered dj with repaired tear and missing chunk at top of spine; dark green cloth with lettering in gilt and decoration in light blue; decorated endpapers; binding good; text clean. G+/G-
Paul Claudel (1868-1955) was the author of numerous plays and several volumes of poetry.
Yale University Press, 1919. 1st edition. Translated from the French by John Strong Newberry. No dust jacket; dark gray cloth over gray boards; title and author on paper label on spine; front cover has one stained area; endpapers foxed; binding tight; some pages uncut; deckled edges; text clean. G
A 16pp catalog issued by The Associated Publishers, Inc, likely in the early 1950s. The cover states the aim of the publisher "The Plan: The publications of the Associated Publishers are planned to cover in the form of textbooks and popular treatises every phase of Negro life and history. The aim here is to make possible the publication and circulation of valuable books on the Negro not acceptable to most publishers."
A bitingly funny, provocative, and revealing look at our foibles, passions, and pasttimes—from one of the most creative minds of our time.
“Nora Ephron can write about anything better than anybody else can write about anything.”—The New York Times
From her Academy Award–nominated screenplays to her bestselling fiction and essays, Nora Ephron is one of America’s most gifted, prolific, and versatile writers. In this classic collection of magazine articles, Ephron does what she does best: embrace American culture with love, cynicism, and unmatched wit. From tracking down the beginnings of the self-help movement to dressing down the fashion world’s most powerful publication to capturing a glimpse of a legendary movie in the making, these timeless pieces tap into our enduring obsessions with celebrity, food, romance, clothes, entertainment, and sex. Whether casting her ingenious eye on renowned director Mike Nichols, Cosmopolitan magazine founder Helen Gurley Brown—or herself, as she chronicles her own beauty makeover—Ephron deftly weaves her journalistic skill with the intimate style of an essayist and the incomparable talent of a great storyteller.
1st edition; dust jacket has small tear at top of spine; black over purple cloth with metallic green lettering on spine; top and bottom edges faded; purple endpapers; binding tight; text clean and bright. G+/G+
We Bombed in New Haven is a 1967 play by Joseph Heller. An anti-war comedy, it is thematically linked in part to Heller's famous novel Catch-22.
1st printing; dust jacket in protective cover; maroon cloth with silver and pink lettering; top edge red; very light foxing on fore-edge; binding tight; text clean. G+/VG
The first definitive biography of Richard Avedon, a monumental photographer of the twentieth century, from award-winning photography critic Philip Gefter.
In his acclaimed portraits, Richard Avedon captured the iconic figures of the twentieth century in his starkly bold, intimately minimal, and forensic visual style. Concurrently, his work for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue transformed the ideals of women's fashion, femininity, and culture to become the defining look of an era. Yet despite his driving ambition to gain respect in the art world, during his lifetime he was condescendingly dismissed as a celebrity photographer.
What Becomes a Legend Most is the first definitive biography of this luminary--an intensely driven man who endured personal and professional prejudice, struggled with deep insecurities, and mounted an existential lifelong battle to be recognized as an artist. Philip Gefter builds on archival research and exclusive interviews with those closest to Avedon to chronicle his story, beginning with Avedon's coming-of-age in New York between the world wars, when cultural prejudices forced him to make decisions that shaped the course of his life.
Compounding his private battles, Avedon fought to be taken seriously in a medium that itself struggled to be respected within the art world. Gefter reveals how the 1950s and 1960s informed Avedon's life and work as much as he informed the period. He counted as close friends a profoundly influential group of artists--Leonard Bernstein, Truman Capote, James Baldwin, Harold Brodkey, Renata Adler, Sidney Lumet, and Mike Nichols--who shaped the cultural life of the American twentieth century. It wasn't until Avedon's fashion work was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the late 1970s that he became a household name.
Balancing glamour with the gravitas of an artist's genuine reach for worldy achievement--and not a little gossip--plus sixteen pages of photographs, What Becomes a Legend Most is an intimate window into Avedon's fascinating world. Dramatic, visionary, and remarkable, it pays tribute to Avedon's role in the history of photography and fashion--and his legacy as one of the most consequential artists of his time.
"A passionate narrative poem by the internationally known star." Illustrated with photographs by the author.
First Dell printing 1975. Clean and tight, only slight wear to covers. VG
Clare Leighton (1898-1989) was an English/American artist, writer, and illustrator, best known for her wood engravings. During the late 1920's and 1930's, Clare Leighton visited the United States on a number of lecture tours. In 1939, at the conclusion of a lengthy relationship with the radical journalist Henry Brailsford, she emigrated to the US and became a naturalized citizen in 1945. Over the course of a long and prolific career, she wrote and illustrated numerous books praising the virtues of the countryside and the people who worked the land. During the 1920's and 1930's, as the world around her became increasingly technological, industrial, and urban, Leighton portrayed rural working men and women. In the 1950's she created designs for Steuben Glass, Wedgwood plates, several stained glass windows for churches in New England and for the windows of Worcester Cathedral, Massachussetts.
Wood-Engraving and Woodcuts, published in 1932, is the second book in the "How to do it" Series. The book features tipped-in photos of Leighton demonstrating wood engraving techniques, along with stunning full-page illustrations of her own work, as well as examples from fellow engravers, such as Eric Gill, Gwendolen Raverat, Blair Hughes-Stanton, and Agnes Miller Parker, among others.
London: The Studio Ltd.; New York: The Studio Publications Inc., 1932; 1st edition. No dust jacket; black and cream patterned paper covered boards with black cloth over the spine; corners bumped; spine creased, top of spine pulled but not torn; smudges on front cover; endpapers tanned and lightly foxed; hinges weak; all tipped-in photos intact; text clean. G
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Age 5-7
